Piers Corbyn (physicist and brother of Jeremy Corbyn) testifies about his political activism from the late 1960s through the 1970s. He was president of Imperial College Student Union 1969-70, became organizer of the Notting Hill Spartacus League and later IMG branch, hosting meetings at his home where police infiltrators attended unknowingly. Corbyn describes the IMG as 'theoretician armchair socialists', questions why police resources were devoted to monitoring flyposting and election campaigns, and states he was pursued by 2-3 undercover officers for 10 years despite 'never doing anything dangerous'. The testimony covers IMG activities, anti-fascist demonstrations, Irish solidarity campaigns, and extensive involvement in the squatting movement where he led successful campaigns resulting in rehousing for thousands of squatters.
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00:24:09 mr cobin do you wish to be sworn or to refer
00:24:16 i think you may be on mute
00:24:29 mr corbin can you hear me i can splendid do you wish to uh be sworn or to refer to a firm sir yeah but may that happen please
00:24:38 thank you chairman good morning mr corbin
00:24:38 corbin can you see and hear me i can i understand that you would like to affirm yes thank you please repeat after me
00:24:54 yes thank you please repeat after me okay i do solemnly sincerely and truly i do solemnly sincerely and truly declare and affirm declare and affirm that the evidence i shall give that the evidence i shall give shall be the truth
00:25:04 the truth shall be the truth the whole truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and nothing but the truth thank you mr corbyn chairman thank you mr warner thank you sir
00:25:16 mr warner thank you sir mr corbin um have given us a 79 page statement um dated last year i believe
00:25:26 believe yes before i ask you some questions can you just confirm please that the statement that you have given us is true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief yes thank you and starting
00:25:40 yes thank you and starting um at the beginning of your political life if i can please yes right i think that your um political activism
00:25:47 activism began as a student in the late 1960s um in london is that right uh that is gorgeous
00:25:56 gorgeous and in fact the first march that you can recall attending was a campaign against nuclear disarmament march uh yes um i did attend such marches when i was at school actually
00:26:11 at school actually just before going to university but um those were quite limited in my activities most of my activities developed
00:26:20 developed in university uh after the first two years at university i see and i think it's also right that you became the uh president of the imperial college student union
00:26:33 imperial college student union that's right i was elected president for 1969 to 1970. and um as part of uh that role and your political um uh activities at
00:26:44 and your political um uh activities at that time you were involved in a number of
00:26:47 of anti-nuclear campaigns and campaigns against chemical and biological warfare yes yes the campaigns against chemical and biological warfare were
00:26:58 were were very important to me in imperial college and to all scientists um a uh dr stephen wrote which later professor stephen i was
00:27:11 professor stephen i was was in the biochemistry department and brought in a lot of information about these things which was very useful you've told us in your statement as well that you uh attended both of the vietnam solidarity campaign
00:27:22 solidarity campaign marches um in in 1968 um yes you've described that as um the main issue of the day at that time
00:27:32 time um were you a member of the the vsc uh well in so far as i was actively supporting it yes but i wasn't
00:27:43 supporting it yes but i wasn't if i don't think well if you had a membership structure i wasn't part of that i was just a active campaigner for vsc the vietnam solidarity campaign so you didn't attend local or branch
00:27:57 so you didn't attend local or branch meetings or anything of that nature for the vsc
00:28:03 the vsc um yes there would have been one or two local meetings yes yes but it wasn't like a membership organization if you see what it means i see the international marxist group was a membership organization though yes well we'll come on to that in in
00:28:22 just focusing on the the vsc marches were you involved in organizing them at all or were you uh more of a an attendee at them i was more of an attendee and a mobilizer i would bring people along bring along banners
00:28:34 bring along banners and sometimes i might have been involved in stewarding but that would have been of the people i bought along essentially
00:28:45 on either of the marches in in march or or october of that year do you recall witnessing any violence or disorder
00:28:51 disorder uh
00:28:59 no although there was a uh big crowd around the american embassy in growing square
00:29:10 american embassy in growing square which the police tried to disperse they tried to prevent demonstrators getting to grover square [Music]
00:29:15 [Music] but i wouldn't say any violence was initiated by demonstrators it was the
00:29:28 initiated by demonstrators it was the police trying to stop people going there and is this the october demonstration yes i think that was october um either 1968 or 1969 probably october 1968.
00:29:40 1968. were you yourself in grosvenor square in october 68 i was yes and were you aware of any weapons being used in the course of that demonstration
00:29:55 mrs corbin you you've also said um in your statement that the the img the international marxist group which
00:30:03 which of which you'll remember yes um had been active
00:30:04 active within the vietnam solidarity how did how did the two groups interact were they
00:30:14 were they were they inextricably linked or were they separate oh they were separate because the uh vsc had a number of different political
00:30:26 vsc had a number of different political groups uh operating in it and supporting it so it was what you might call a united front of different groups and
00:30:37 different groups and i think individual individuals who just joined in and became organizers but i wasn't one of those and so is it fair to say the ing was just one of these groups that were just one but probably the most influential
00:30:48 influential i see um and can i take it from that that there was a lot of crossover in terms of people supporting the vsc and the img
00:30:59 the img yes well everyone in the rmg would have supported the vrc i would say yes um mr corbin are you able to say whether the img
00:31:08 the img were involved um in any of the disorder that happened in the vsc demonstrations in 1968
00:31:21 demonstrations in 1968 uh no i mean the img's role always historically was to mobilize people and make from that make propaganda to
00:31:34 make propaganda to a wider public on what was the nature of world conflict the nature of u.s imperialism uh and and so forth i see um in terms of your political uh life did you
00:31:50 political uh life did you um become involved in the img and the spartacus league um through the vsc or were you involved before or at the same time um i was interested in the vsc because um
00:32:02 i was interested in the vsc because um you see at that time you have to think that was the thing going on in the world and i remember at school we would have discussions about vietnam you know
00:32:13 vietnam you know it was a formative uh crisis for
00:32:24 uh crisis for tens of thousands of young people at the time and i was one of them um yeah the reason why i joined the img wasn't specifically that although
00:32:35 that although of course i noted that the rmg was close was
00:32:36 was an important force in the vsc um i became editor of the university of london
00:32:50 london student newspaper senate after being president of the student union and it was around that time i
00:33:02 and it was around that time i noticed the img and they got involved in helping doing some of the things i was doing and then then i joined them in about 1970 it was after i was president of the student union that i joined when it wasn't during that time i see it is it right that you
00:33:14 i see it is it right that you became involved in the spartacus league um
00:33:15 um at around this time as well yes that's right the spartacus league it was it was originally
00:33:28 originally misstated as something else in the uh evidence but we put it right in my statement here yes the spartacus league was uh part of the img a sort of
00:33:38 recruiting youth section if you like and i was uh
00:33:41 i was uh an active member of that and so just just just so that we can understand how it interacted with the img um was it run
00:33:50 run by the by the img uh yes it was it was wondering
00:33:54 wondering and it was as you described it as a youth section can i take it from that it had a large student
00:34:05 student um membership yes yes that's correct um could you be a member of the spartacus league without being a member of the img or were the two you could no you could in fact quite a number of people were and i was that initially and then if
00:34:20 initially and then if um you proved your worth the img would uh uh ask you if you wanted to join the img as well
00:34:27 well right so can we take it from that that not all of the members of the spartacus league
00:34:32 league necessarily went on to become img members that's correct some of them might
00:34:39 might have not been interested in in that uh some of them uh i've lost interest in politics altogether but most spartacus believe members would have become img members yes
00:34:52 have become img members yes i see um can we just have a look at um a report that we have uh uh recovered um on the spartacus league and it will come up on the screen okay it is i've got a very thick file here so i don't need to look through that then that's useful
00:35:06 that then that's useful don't worry too much about that i'll just read the number out for the technician it's mps-0732360
00:35:18 it's mps-0732360 and it's page two when it comes up please okay thanks very much
00:35:30 um thank you now now mr corbin you can see this is a a report from january 1972 yeah king of the notting hills spartacus league at
00:35:37 league at 17a rendall street yes that's your that was your home address wasn't it uh that was my home address yes and we had a number of meetings of the notting hills spartacus league there and and of course uh
00:35:53 league there and and of course uh i didn't realize at the time but some of the people in the spartacus league were police agents and uh i was entertaining him in my flat unknowingly
00:36:07 unknowingly um were you the organizer of the notting hill
00:36:07 hill branch uh i was yes i
00:36:21 i remember a lot of detail actually in the past but there will be some gaps i think but yes i was the organizer of nottingham will spartacus and just in terms of what that would have entailed um are we talking about sort of
00:36:31 sort of keeping minutes and agendas and things like that
00:36:34 like that yes that type of thing lists of lists of members in contacts uh telling people when they're meetings and then organizing newspaper sales of of the uh img paper i think it was called
00:36:49 img paper i think it was called well it kept changing his name actually it might have been red mold something like that but it did change its name in various various stages um we can see at the end of
00:36:57 of the second paragraph that eight persons were present at this particular meeting uh was that a common attendance number for
00:37:06 for this group at this time yes yes yes half a dozen to two dozen that sort of numbers yes yes all right um i'm just going to um read the the
00:37:20 the the third paragraph out for the transcript um
00:37:20 um it reads the meeting was chaired by piers corbin and was concerned with the future activities of the notting hills spartacus league branch
00:37:31 spartacus league branch privacy briefly outlined the activities of the notting hill red defense group and this was followed by a deep and involved discussion of sl spartacus league assistance to the group
00:37:40 group although privacy took great pains to point out that the majority of people involved in the group were not members of the international marxist
00:37:55 members of the international marxist group and were completely non-sectarian and had no wish to be otherwise the discussion centered around how the notting hill faction of the img could take over run and use the organization for recruitment to
00:38:02 to the img um can you recall mr uh corbin
00:38:13 can you recall mr uh corbin um what the red the notting hill red defense group was um i think that was a idea that
00:38:31 i think that was a idea that we wanted i might be wrong but i think it was the same thing as what we later called this is uh people's defense um group where you see because of the way the police behaved at times in notting hill in uh
00:38:43 in uh clearly a racist fashion towards some of the
00:38:44 the uh population that there should be a kind of independent people's policing and we call that a uh a red defense group
00:38:53 group that's as far as i remember but otherwise i yeah i can't think what the purpose of red defense group was other than that
00:39:03 than that um just in terms of the the last um section of that paragraph that the img could take over run and use the organization
00:39:14 organization was this something that the img frequently did with other groups
00:39:31 well no i mean you see this of course is written by a policeman who was presumably reading into a situation something which he might have wanted to present to his superiors to confirm what they may believe
00:39:45 confirm what they may believe uh i mean i myself when i was involved in these things was interested always in getting people to join in [Music]
00:39:55 [Music] uh stay active and make uh propaganda i
00:40:06 make uh propaganda i i the idea of taking over groups wasn't something that i thought was
00:40:14 something that ordered it or to be done um
00:40:17 um because independent groups tacked in together in my view which is a better way than having a sort of uh well taiko was as you described there so i
00:40:30 i i would say on that that likely the police
00:40:31 police man was a woman whatever was reading into it uh too much i think we know that this was a policeman yeah yeah okay well i think we do
00:40:46 yeah yeah okay well i think we do but sometimes there were women involved in in these groups so and the identity of the infiltrator has not been revealed to me
00:41:01 me um mr corbin um can i ask this this if i saw the names of all the people at the present
00:41:02 present those meetings i would probably be able to identify which one was the policeman however we've got a lot of redacted information this reports which you know i mean if
00:41:14 this reports which you know i mean if you're trying to have an inquiry into what was going on in 1968 one needs to have maximum information not limited information um can i ask this document's taken down please
00:41:28 please and we're going to have a look at another report please okay it is uh ucpi five zeros one five six nine four
00:41:43 you've got a lot of documents a lot of work has been done
00:41:52 yes it has oh i don't i haven't got diaries anything like in fact i don't even have diaries of these things so this is a useful and useful diary of uh activities i was doing even if through the eyes of a policeman
00:42:05 through the eyes of a policeman um well mr corbin this is a um what's described as an in international marxist group and spartacus league at conference yeah can i move this screen a bit further forward so that i can see it a bit better
00:42:18 bit better because the printing on this thing is not
00:42:23 not good yeah that's better okay and it was held in may 1972 okay and at the top of page uh sorry of paragraph three which we can see there
00:42:35 which we can see there um it reads persons attending the conference were classified as either delegate uh consultative delegate
00:42:41 delegate observer or visitor um and if we just scroll down to the bottom of that paragraph please
00:42:51 how do i score oh i see are you okay
00:43:05 thank you um three or two just three um so what we have there is um four categories of people who attended this conference yeah are you able to recall which which category you would have fallen into ah let's have a look so a delegate
00:43:17 let's go through this again so you can be a delegate
00:43:28 be a delegate delegate consultant delegate observer or visitor and that was 1972. um
00:43:37 actually i can't remember i don't think i was an observer or visitor i was either a delegate or a consultant thank you um but the last sentence uh of this paragraph reads the last category visitor
00:43:48 category visitor was any person not a full member of either organization who was sympathetic to the politics of the organization such persons could attend open sessions only
00:43:57 only and had no voting rights whatsoever yeah can we take from this mr corbyn that a member of the public could have attended this conference but in that capacity
00:44:12 well they weren't public conferences they'd have to be invited right even as a visitor yes yes definitely it wasn't advertised as a
00:44:27 definitely it wasn't advertised as a come and join in thing it was uh i think what would happen is that you any of the groups or or any of the um uh parts of the img and any of the branches would have contacts and they would say to
00:44:38 contacts and they would say to contacts you know that is people who were showing some sort of interest in what was going on do you want to come along to the conference and you can be there as an adult
00:44:46 adult see and that's what would happen and i think can we also take from that sentence that there were um both closed sessions
00:44:57 closed sessions and open sessions oh yeah there were indeed closed sessions in open sessions yes
00:45:05 yes so even within the the group of people who were present at the conference only some could attend closed sessions is that right uh yes that's right i mean it's a bit like uh the london boroughs they have
00:45:16 like uh the london boroughs they have council meetings where they have closed sessions and open sessions depending on what they're talking about um i see
00:45:21 um i see so it's a normal process in a lot of
00:45:31 organizations in the united kingdom can we scroll
00:45:36 we scroll to page two please and paragraph five of that page
00:45:45 thank you um halfway through this paragraph
00:45:49 paragraph mr corbin you'll see that um uh i think uh
00:45:49 uh bob purdy opened the proceedings oh i remember the name he then called for an immediate vote on three items and the first being the ratification of the fusion of the img
00:46:05 the fusion of the img with the spartacus league yes that's a vote that was then carried yeah so can we take it from that mr corbin that from this point onwards uh the the spartacus league became part of the img
00:46:19 of the img yes that's right well i think the idea was that the spartacus league as a youth section wasn't necessary anymore
00:46:26 anymore and one would just have the rng
00:46:32 thank you um i just want to ask you a couple more a couple of other questions about things that happened at this conference could we move to page six please
00:46:49 thank you and it's paragraph 24 that we're interested in okay it's a bit smaller on my screen can you don't worry it will get bigger if you just oh okay bear with us a moment thank you um
00:47:00 bear with us a moment thank you um now this this is um a topic that was raised at the conference i'm just going to read it out again surgit's speech reiterated the now standard
00:47:12 standard cliches of women's liberation best women in society the struggle for equal rights the establishment of the woman as an accepted member of society and the fight against sexist male chauvinism
00:47:24 chauvinism her speech contained little that was constructive and confined itself almost entirely
00:47:31 entirely to an attack upon the men at the conference this attack brought squeals of delight from most of the other female members of the audience
00:47:44 mr corbyn can you can you help us with whether that that's an accurate description of something that happens
00:47:54 i i don't remember i mean this surgit of course is a is a kind of covenant a party name obviously
00:47:59 obviously um so i'm wondering who it's a long time ago who that could have been
00:48:08 been um like the the were that sort of thing said
00:48:11 said but i think perhaps that description of it is a bit over the top how i mean there were certain you know criticisms from women of the attitudes of men but uh it was
00:48:28 attitudes of men but uh it was all in the context of we all been in the img together but yeah those type of things were said yes but the the the way that is put forward perhaps is a bit over the top
00:48:44 perhaps is a bit over the top right um so far as i remember i mean you know yes well um that's quite understandable um can we move to page four please
00:49:01 thank you and it's paragraph 16 i was just going to ask you a question about um it reads as follows the conference took fraternal greetings from a peruvian member of the fi
00:49:05 fi and i think that's the fourth international yes it would be the fourth innovation his speech was brief and delivered through an interpreter
00:49:16 through an interpreter was exceptionally well received no doubt this was due to its revolutionary content
00:49:19 content for the speaker called for revolutionary support for the armed struggles throughout the world such as in south america and ireland and contains such stirring phrases as
00:49:30 and contains such stirring phrases as the revolution will not be won without mark
00:49:34 mark until marx's blood is spilled in the street
00:49:36 street he ended with shouts of viva la revolucion and the audience julie rose to its feet and applauded um how seriously was
00:49:49 um how seriously was statements like this taken by the img mr corbin
00:49:50 corbin well i mean there were numbers of statements like this but i i took them as being
00:49:58 as being well used to be this this phrase around the img's would say if you care to struggle we will solidarize with you
00:50:11 we will solidarize with you which would mean that are the img organization would support uh support it doesn't mean endorse everything support many things going on because they were against
00:50:23 they were against world capitalism or in particular us imperialism um but if you're leading to thinking well because people were applauding this group whatever they were doing therefore
00:50:34 therefore the img itself would want to do the same in the united kingdom i think that would be a completely wrong conclusion i see um this document can come down now thank you um mr corbin
00:50:56 thank you um mr corbin moving on to the img um more generally you've described in your statement um that the img considered itself a revolutionary organization um what was meant in your mind by by that
00:51:08 in your mind by by that well it was means that the idea of the ing
00:51:10 ing and the thought well the rng in particular would have been that um the capitalist
00:51:22 um the capitalist way of running things uh had to end and capitalism was in crisis and therefore had to be a revolution into a
00:51:31 into a a socialist or socialistic of some sort society
00:51:32 society where um the open market didn't determine how things happened i i.e the strength of different capitals
00:51:44 capitals capitalists didn't determine how things had happened and you had a sort of more democratic process but that's what it meant yes the word revolution doesn't necessarily mean violence at all
00:51:55 necessarily mean violence at all it means a revolutionary change a big change a fundamental change a change in
00:52:01 in the basic way in which society was organized did you consider this was at the time i'm interested in
00:52:12 at the time i'm interested in did you consider this was likely to happen immediately or quickly or was this a longer term well by myself i do recall at some point having discussions with
00:52:27 having discussions with people and so i sort of believed yeah it was all going to happen somehow within five or ten years now looking back i think this was just delusional nonsense but that's what i thought now people in the img are
00:52:44 the img are i i think they'd have a variety of views probably most people believed in a a slow
00:52:44 slow sort of process because we recognize we were in an infinitesimal group of a few hundred people and putting forward ideas which we hope would
00:52:55 would catalyze people into better understanding of things uh i you know you have to think that in terms of groups on the left the uh the left in the sense used in those days
00:53:09 days um the img was the one which did a lot of
00:53:09 of kind of theoretical work and kind of analysis of what the way world
00:53:22 kind of analysis of what the way world history was what was developing i mean in terms of any groups promoting violence the img wasn't wasn't that there were groups out there maybe which you know would have had different views but the they weren't
00:53:35 but the they weren't they weren't the img i was in the rmg not in in other groups did the img um consider that this change should come about through democratic means or otherwise
00:53:52 well i would say democratic needs i mean that would involve demonstrations and protests
00:53:53 protests but uh democratic news yes you know you have trade unions you have tenants organizations you have uh all sorts of groups which will
00:54:06 uh all sorts of groups which will bring together people you see to me in my mind
00:54:07 my mind change is involves numbers um
00:54:18 and that is the key whereas there will be some people that would might have believed you had to kind of manipulate situations in in a paramilitary fashion this wasn't uh my view or all right
00:54:31 this wasn't uh my view or all right i understand it the img's which is why the img was the iron gene as opposed to some other groups which might have had entirely different ideas could we have a look please at ucpi um five zeros 109.44
00:54:50 please
00:55:00 uh mr corbin this is this is a thank you this is a report um by a a police officer um of a meeting um held between the img and a member of the communist party of great britain
00:55:14 the communist party of great britain um if we could scroll down to paragraph four please
00:55:21 thank you tariq ali um who no doubt you'll be familiar with yeah normally from that's terry kelly sorry tarik ali um spoke at this meeting and said as follows
00:55:29 follows tarik ali then thanked anthony uh for coming along to explain the ideas of the communist party but added that he disagreed with the basic concept that parliament
00:55:45 basic concept that parliament must survive since it had shown only too clearly that it was merely represented that it merely represented the interests of big business what was needed
00:55:56 needed he continued were workers councils set up during the period of change which followed the revolution opposition ideas would be allowed but control would remain
00:56:07 remain with the great mass of workers through their councils
00:56:19 their councils um would you have agreed with mr ali in advocating for councils and the abolition of parliament mr corbin uh yes um
00:56:26 uh yes um insofar as the way forward yes i would agree that you have to have accountability of the society run by the people from below so you'd have these committees which is obviously modeled in the
00:56:40 which is obviously modeled in the russian revolution idea of soviets i.e all the people in one area would represent that area or the interests of the
00:56:49 the of the workers or trade unions in that area
00:56:54 area uh and that would then feed up to uh more democratic control um it doesn't mean parliament would disappear instantly i would say but you see
00:57:01 see parliament as it is it all then certainly uh well and now even more so it's uh controlled by external forces largely
00:57:12 largely and i don't need to tell you that there's a lot of uh corruption in the modern parliament and conflicts of interest and if conflicts of interest were removed from the modern cabinet then it would be an empty room which would probably be better anyway
00:57:27 which would probably be better anyway we're digressing into the now but you see i think you can understand from the now why then uh and i don't believe parliament then was much better though probably was a bit better um
00:57:39 probably was a bit better um then the parliament nevertheless its function is essentially to uh carry out the wishes of
00:57:52 those who have the main controlling interest in modern society are you um capitalists of various types mr corbin thank you that can we take this document down please
00:58:06 this document down please one of the the officers who reported on you
00:58:07 you hn353 who whose cover name that was gary roberts has stated that the img were strong on words
00:58:20 the img were strong on words but in hindsight i think they were not really likely to act on them
00:58:22 on them [Laughter] well yes that's true well that's true of most politicians indeed well although img members didn't think of themselves as politicians and yeah i think that's a fair statement
00:58:39 and yeah i think that's a fair statement so they would make big rhetorical things about revolution and class struggle and everything but um
00:58:46 partly they were i would say theoreticist armchair socialists but perhaps i was one of those at the time although i was always very keen on activity and talking to people and communicating and getting people involved in
00:58:58 involved in [Music]
00:59:04 [Music] demonstrations of various sorts against injustices of the times like in the rs issues the various workers struggles going on and what well what issues housing issues and so forth
00:59:16 and so forth well we'll come on to some of those yes of course mr corbin um i think it's right that you um later in 1972 became the the organizer for the notting hill branch of the img
00:59:30 branch of the img rather than the spartacus league correct yes because the the spartacus league then have disappeared anyway so we'll be merged so yeah and these um and these meetings again took place at your
00:59:44 your home address is that right uh yes they did generally speaking and we can we can see an example of one of these reports um can we turn can we bring up please ucpi
00:59:55 ucpi uh six zeros eight nine four eight
01:00:07 you've done a lot of work to get all these things together i'm impressed because i couldn't remember this stuff and this again i think you could see in paragraph
01:00:24 paragraph two that's the same address in rendall street so your your home address and if we turn to page four of this uh document and just zoom in on the the middle uh and just scroll down a little please thank you and this is this is a
01:00:40 thank you and this is this is a a document that i think you prepared um
01:00:47 so that must have been my typewriter at the time okay and what what what i'm interested in mr corbin is
01:00:54 corbin is is this is a a prospectus for them i'm going
01:01:10 i think it reads the um the initial plans adopted by the working group after russians was to undertake the following activities so okay what i'm interested in mr corbin is what the notting hill branch of the img were doing with their time um the first is red
01:01:23 is red circle yeah um can you just tell us briefly
01:01:26 briefly what red circle was please yeah red circles
01:01:27 circles were public events which are advertised uh and involve people sitting around in a circular fashion in a room usually a hired room above a pub
01:01:46 usually a hired room above a pub um and it would have speakers along on issues of our time like the speaker would come along about vietnam for example the speaker would come along about the minor strike although then there wasn't a minus five otherwise later on uh
01:02:00 uh um a speaker might come along about the situation in students so they were quite lively discussion groups and completely open to the public so you give out leaflets people come along and uh you will talk
01:02:17 people come along and uh you will talk and the the second thing we can see is mole sales that i think might be a reference to red mold the img correct that was the red mold sales and we sold those in um often in portobello road on what is now portobello green
01:02:31 now portobello green a place i was visiting only a few days ago
01:02:32 ago um uh campaigning for my election as mayor of london and other candidates from the
01:02:44 candidates from the london live campaign um the third thing we can see mentioned is people's associations and can you just help us with what that was um
01:02:51 was um if you can yes yes yes i i think this referred to what i mentioned earlier about red defense
01:03:02 defense people's association i think was
01:03:14 people's association i think was some rmg contact whose name escapes me wanted to have sort of grassroots community things which would
01:03:26 kind of become community police to prevent the police or or as an alternative to the police in their um sometimes racist that well often
01:03:40 racist that well often normally i would say racist approach to the area uh and there was a people's association set up by these guys who were not img members but were sympathizers i suppose
01:03:54 but were sympathizers i suppose um and and it says that the pa collapsed in october yeah i remember that but i don't know why it collapsed it might have been that the principal people moved out i
01:04:05 the principal people moved out i i don't know when we say intervention was successful i i think that meant that people had listened to what we'd said and and you know the organization the people's association managed to
01:04:18 people's association managed to make some impact on its alternative policing ideas uh but clearly it didn't last what were these associations uh
01:04:29 what were these associations uh controlled or run by the img or were they
01:04:30 they never no i remember the guy i think so i can sort of almost picture him in my mind
01:04:40 my mind no he was a interesting guy and would you know
01:04:43 you know said he was doing these things would we help and join in so so we did it was i would say the rmg's role was essentially supportive i i would say it's important to understand the img did often
01:05:00 to understand the img did often support things without trying to control i i mean whereas some other revolutionary groups were only into control and i do remember the phrase
01:05:11 the phrase we should set up a support committee for this or support committee for that um you know some strike or protest you know that sort of thing um
01:05:22 protest you know that sort of thing um just finally um the the the last thing that was on there we've just lost it but it but it was the claimant's union um what what was the img's involvement in the claimants union i think again it was uh
01:05:33 claimants union i think again it was uh supportive see the claimant's union then was uh
01:05:37 was uh just people who were claiming benefits and were not getting their just
01:05:52 getting their just benefits so they would form together and put pressure on the the social security offices um no i remember some of the activists there who were they weren't img members but they were very dedicated dedicated people what was the img involved in the claimants union
01:06:06 involved in the claimants union um or just members thereof well in a supportive way i it says there and this should work totally unproductive
01:06:20 totally unproductive i don't i don't really remember all the details but it's something about their anako hippy blah blah blah i i don't know
01:06:24 know but there were some good people involved in cleveland's union that's in my personal
01:06:25 personal assessment uh but that they were really into one thing that's making sure people got their benefits rather than
01:06:37 people got their benefits rather than wider issues i think could we just turn to the
01:06:40 to the the first page of this uh document please
01:06:44 please and paragraph five and get there thank you
01:06:50 you thank you um now this this is the the report of
01:06:53 report of the the officer who who has appended the document we've just looked at and the officers written at the the meeting then moved on to item eight on the agenda a discussion on the perspectives document
01:07:06 perspectives document produced by piers corbyn on the proposed merger with the notting hill and west london img groups in that document
01:07:14 document corbyn used various coded initials in many instances apparently to confuse the identification of persons i think it says if the document happens to fall into the hands of special branch
01:07:28 of special branch and then the officer goes on to say an appendix giving the identification of the majority of such coding initials and is
01:07:34 and is attached very good to your memory best of your memory mr corbin did you use coded initials when
01:07:46 you use coded initials when uh preparing documents like that yes yes that was the norm in the img the theory was that if you had these coded initials or party names then the special branch if
01:07:59 party names then the special branch if they were around infiltrating or anyone who got these documents wouldn't know who was what however of course the special branch were infiltrated and infiltrating us anyway so they knew everything
01:08:10 everything a bit like modern mobile phones people might be trying to keep themselves secret but frankly uh you know if bill gates wants to know what you said yesterday he can find out how how concerned were you um as a group about
01:08:23 about uh material like this oh i took it seriously to to use these party names or or initials although sometimes uh i couldn't remember who was who
01:08:36 remember who was who myself so would then maybe rather than a party name i put some initials which then people would know you know what if if pc was down there it might stand to pierce corbin although i did i had a different party name
01:08:49 did i had a different party name which was not pc your your party name i i think um was annual was it it was mostly i think i had more than one party name that which people you know started off with one or another but uh i was called annual yes and i think that there
01:09:04 called annual yes and i think that there is a report which which we don't need to bring up which confirms that um yes it came from a nickname in a in a uh nus
01:09:13 nus conference i was described as a hardy annual that always turned up and actually if you think about it it should be a per per annual but anyway that became my party name because
01:09:25 because uh the general public considered me as sort of an annual person who turned up to every national union student conference there was did
01:09:37 was did just so that we can understand how how widely used this was um did you know for instance the real names of most of the members of your of your local branch of the img oh yes yes i would know them by their real names and
01:09:50 names and have to try and remember their party names at times and
01:09:58 you know it might have given the impression that all these organizations were twice as big as they were but anyway that's can you uh thank you and this this report can come down now um how concerned uh can you remember whether the i
01:10:10 whether the i how concerned with the img leadership about uh
01:10:13 about uh um surveillance and possible infiltration um i think they took it seriously although possibly looking back to an extent it was something which made members feel
01:10:24 members feel uh part of something bigger and something more important than than perhaps it was uh because we were quite a tiny group really
01:10:38 really did you take any other steps other than party names and occasionally coded initials to um protect against this no i don't think so well obviously you
01:10:51 no i don't think so well obviously you don't believe documents lying around you know that sort of thing don't talk to people about who your members are uh or talk to non-members about who your members are yes
01:11:02 members are yes and just so that we can understand that the motivation behind this what why were you
01:11:06 you concerned personally about other people or the police being able to be aware of what you were doing at your meetings
01:11:24 well it was not anyone else's business i would say so we had a right to privacy um uh
01:11:35 that's that's all that's all i would say i said yeah you you've said in your statement that you you assumed that you were under surveillance which which would certainly fit with what you've told us well
01:11:44 well yeah and the omg generally people believe that we were and i think there had been some evidence of that which i didn't know about but of course now i can i knew it was true and uh
01:11:58 i can i knew it was true and uh much more extensive than i imagined possible you see having this seems to be three officers who were pursuing me for various offices but at any one time
01:12:10 various offices but at any one time there seemed to be three two or three pursuing me and this went on for ten years this is a massive use of police time for them for what
01:12:19 what for what i mean you know i didn't do anything
01:12:24 anything dangerous uh nor did anybody to my knowledge in in the parts of the ing that i knew um mr corbin if we if we can turn to a slightly separate topic um can we please bring up document ucpi six zeros eight one
01:12:40 ucpi six zeros eight one thirty and sir that's at your tab thirteen
01:12:47 thirteen oh you wanted to look at dab thirteen no that's just for the chairman mr corbin come up on the screen thank you and this is a meeting of the london aggregates of the img
01:12:58 london aggregates of the img and i'm interested in the top of page two please
01:13:12 the transcript and however the main part of his speech was the seven point plan as given on page 11 of the attached document which deals with the way in which members of the organization
01:13:23 the organization could become more deeply involved in the trade union field especially engineering local government building trades and the post office mr corbin what what was the img's relationship with um
01:13:37 was the img's relationship with um trade unions as far as you can recall well
01:13:39 well the idea then was the idea was to um recruit um trade unionists
01:13:50 recruit um trade unionists uh or even members of the img would start working in certain fields and then build
01:14:05 build trade union branches or associations uh with the img with a view to supporting uh trade union struggles and protests or whatever
01:14:11 whatever uh in different industries it was termed a important thing to do
01:14:23 it was termed a important thing to do rather than doing student work as it was called
01:14:26 called student work wasn't being dropped but it's
01:14:31 it's the point was that the img wanted to uh develop more into a wider field what the img changed society see trade unions been the uh
01:14:45 unions been the uh essentially the producers of wealth so therefore
01:14:48 therefore uh potential to change society into something more democratic and accountable were the ing trying to
01:14:53 trying to gain control of trade unions well i suppose if they ever got enough
01:15:04 well i suppose if they ever got enough members or supporters in a trade union then they
01:15:05 then they they might become leaders thereof but this stuff here was just at least to get uh uh a presence that's all i would say
01:15:22 uh uh a presence that's all i would say i see and um we i think we can possibly infer from this that the img certainly at this point was trying to get more involved yes trade unions is it fair to say that you would support trade unions on specific strikes
01:15:32 strikes well generally speaking yeah something well as i said there was a joke in the rng
01:15:37 rng if you care to struggle we will solidarize with you so i think you would go around supporting all sorts of things
01:15:46 of things not necessarily the detail you know we have this
01:15:46 have this phrase of conditional sorry unconditional but not uncritical support for xyz so you'd say to these
01:16:02 for xyz so you'd say to these workers doing some strike or occupation great we support you completely i mean and that protest or action might do something that we wouldn't have agreed with but we'd say well okay
01:16:14 well okay maybe you should have done this or that but it doesn't mean we stop supporting the general project of this strike or occupation or whatever i see it wasn't about control it was about support
01:16:28 support could we please take this document down and and replace it uh with ucpi six zeros seven nine four zero and uh so you'll find that of tab three of your bundle
01:16:52 find that of tab three of your bundle thank you um now i i'm interested in the third paragraph and i'm afraid it's um a pretty poor quality document um so i i'll try and um read the second sentence uh it reads uh piers corbin and privacy emerged as the leading personalities advocating a strong
01:17:10 advocating a strong militant approach to the student protest march and this is i should say a report um
01:17:11 um proposing a march um against uh a minor strike uh sorry you know supporting a minority to support the miners yes
01:17:26 support the miners yes um and uh the report suggests that you and other img members uh in the face of opposition from international socialist members proposed a march to the national coal board headquarters and there is some
01:17:40 headquarters and there is some suggestion later on that an occupation was involved really okay
01:17:47 do you consider this a fair characterization mr corbin yes i do remember this this uh actually which is quite fascinating i think there was a
01:18:00 fascinating i think there was a some sort of student rally in trafalgar square
01:18:06 square or some i think it was mostly students uh maybe even called by the nus supporting the miners and um we thought or i thought and my supporters that we ought to march from there to the national coal board
01:18:21 from there to the national coal board to call up on the cold war to give in to the miners and um that we did by a tactic of a group of
01:18:33 by a tactic of a group of img supporters marching round trafalgar square approximately twice chanting things like march to the coal board
01:18:40 board if i'm remembering the right thing and then
01:18:45 then the crowd in trafalgar square just joined in i thought well that's something to do let's go there and uh it was a great big crowd went off to the cold board and i remember being lifted on somebody's shoulders to
01:18:59 shoulders to speak with a megaphone about supporting the
01:19:00 the miners but frankly i don't remember anything about trying to occupy the national coal board i i i suppose people might have thought of such things but i we were there to make a point that
01:19:16 we were there to make a point that the whole country should be supporting the miners um mr corbin you'll see the top of paragraph
01:19:21 paragraph four it reads the img s sl so i think that's spartacus league at this point members were obviously furious um
01:19:37 members were obviously furious um at the wishy-washy approach by the is and i think that's international socialism
01:19:39 socialism members who uh i think it might say contrived to gain support
01:19:46 support from the uncommitted members present now evidently from from that um there was both img
01:19:57 was both img and international social yes yes at this meeting
01:20:03 meeting um to what extent did you did you tend to interact and cooperate with the international socialists well i think the general idea of the rng was to
01:20:11 was to cooperate as much as we could on joint activities
01:20:19 but on some occasions the is for their own
01:20:23 own reasons didn't want to cooperate that's how i saw it going on and this was uh an example i can't for the life of me see why the is wouldn't want to also march to to the coal board but anyway
01:20:38 march to to the coal board but anyway and the the the tenor of this report mr corbin
01:20:40 corbin certainly suggests that um the img group in this meeting wanted to go further
01:20:48 further than the is yes yes um you know marches rather than uh directed marches rather than other things it yes did that
01:21:04 other things it yes did that was that what tended to happen between the the different outlooks in the two groups was that um yeah i would say so i would say so at that time
01:21:12 that time only all these groups have evolved in different directions but mostly that would be the question and
01:21:21 and if we could move to the second page please
01:21:21 please paragraph nine it's quite interesting remembering all this stuff thank you for well i don't know if i should thank you all frankly but it's
01:21:32 all frankly but it's fascinating remembering in detail these little
01:21:34 little events which uh well i think they were important at the time i think they were important to do those things so paragraph eight
01:21:45 paragraph eight just before we go on to paragraph nine a privacy also suggested that if possible members should attempt to occupy the the cold war
01:21:57 cold war although uh none too hopeful of this as he anticipated the building would be heavily protected well i think that's pretty obvious yeah okay now paragraph nine um it says this privacy
01:22:09 um it says this privacy then called for three volunteers to take part
01:22:10 part in a special task during the demonstration which would involve breaking the law three unidentified members
01:22:22 readily volunteered and were told by privacy
01:22:25 privacy that he would later give them private instructions regarding this task he assured the volunteers that if they were arrested and prosecuted any resulting fines would be paid by the img
01:22:41 be paid by the img um can you recall mr corbin if this was accurate
01:22:45 accurate and accurate well i i just don't remember that i don't remember it um but i suppose your question might break i mean that could happen i wouldn't
01:22:58 mean that could happen i wouldn't rule it out i don't think it's been made up by a policeman something must have been
01:23:02 been going on but what do you see when it's something
01:23:05 something breaking the law i mean it might be as simple as
01:23:09 simple as as writing slogan on a building or hoisting a banner over something you know what i mean i i don't know unless we know what actually happened we i can't really comment further on that but
01:23:22 but i was not one of these three volunteers if indeed
01:23:23 if indeed the volunteers came as described there um what were things like this commonly discussed
01:23:30 discussed at img meetings or wider meetings plans to break the law and whatever no no i mean mostly it was pretty mundane sort of stuff
01:23:41 sort of stuff but as i say what they mean by breaking the law here is i think you have to find out what that is see why did the policeman report on what was
01:23:54 was you know happening later on i mean that that's what you we need to know or you need to know for this ignoring well i'm just interested to know whether something like this would have been would have been a common occurrence or you know memorable
01:24:08 you know memorable rather extraordinary thing to come up at a meeting
01:24:10 a meeting well i would say it's memorable and rather extraordinary because it's it's you know making promises about fines being paid or something which is um well it suggested something risky but
01:24:26 um well it suggested something risky but mind you of course then you could easily get arrested for just doing a bit of fly posting yeah you know so
01:24:32 know so uh the actual uh the activity might not be such a big deal and i'd like to
01:24:44 not be such a big deal and i'd like to remember i'd like to know what it was i mean
01:24:44 mean if they did this i don't remember any dramatic thing happening maybe it just didn't work maybe the people involved dropped out
01:24:57 involved dropped out more generally mr corbin what you've said in in in your witness statement that that i'm quoting um that an unjust law will inevitably
01:25:09 inevitably be broken um what was your attitude towards
01:25:10 towards breaking the law at that time
01:25:22 well yeah at that time i believed there were well i still believe there's just laws and unjust laws unjust laws get introduced by the powers that be
01:25:30 that be in order to impose things uh which may be incorrect now at the time my mind might have been concentrating on housing issues and uh we could talk about squatting later although you don't
01:25:44 although you don't mention much of it surprisingly in these reports um but unjust laws are things whereby people are put in a position where they
01:25:55 people are put in a position where they have to agree something when really they don't want to but they're kind of blackmailed or not bribed but blackmailed and told you know you
01:26:00 know you if you you can become a tenant or a licensee if you agree to leave when the owner wants you but you see this is a kind of uh
01:26:12 a kind of uh i would say that's not just just law of treating people's housing rights for example um we'll we'll come up we'll come on to to that um
01:26:23 that um a little later um i'm just interested to know is is this your view or is this a view that was widely held amongst the members of the ing at around this time
01:26:40 well that's my view would i describe what would the rmg think about laws well i think they would sim think something
01:26:43 something similar in that you ask the question where does law come from uh you know laws are agreed by uh well a parliamentary process but then who
01:26:56 who is is instigating things in this parliamentary process you see right now we have parliament agreeing
01:27:05 agreeing uh to allow the police to have even more spy cops powers than in the past you know and this inquiry has happened precisely because of spy cops psy policeman's infiltrating
01:27:20 spy cops psy policeman's infiltrating overstepping a reasonable mark in their personal
01:27:24 personal relationships between male c policemen and
01:27:27 and and women and and you know consequent children which was horrific and that's the main reason why this inquiry is happening i think um mr corbin yeah okay just going back to the time 1970s um
01:27:43 just going back to the time 1970s um to take you back there no i don't mind that's fine would the img in in your view have have been open
01:27:48 been open in calling for what for what was considered to be an unjust law to be broken by its members would that be something that was encouraged well i think it
01:28:03 well i think it would be a specific thing i i would say you think well you'd have to give an example um and i can't think of any specific
01:28:14 and i can't think of any specific example other than in the housing movement when in fact it wasn't so much laws but rules introduced by short life housing organizations and and i said well you have to
01:28:28 i said well you have to break these agreements because housing rights
01:28:29 rights were more important than the interests of these housing associations um now you're looking for a law some
01:28:40 um now you're looking for a law some sort of law where the img said break this because it's unjust well i i don't know but there were trade union laws there were laws introduced against trade unions yes
01:28:54 against trade unions yes um where the government at the time were trying to limit the powers of trade unions the right to strike and so on now
01:28:59 on now those things like laws against the right to strike were considered yes definitely as
01:29:08 as unjust laws and therefore should be challenged uh and and broken yes and could we just there will be specific it was it wasn't like it didn't mean that it would be right to
01:29:19 it didn't mean that it would be right to rob people you know i mean so they would be quite specific like i would describe them as politically motivated laws if you like
01:29:33 politically motivated laws if you like um can we just turn to another report um on a slightly different subject please at ucpi um six zeros eight seven nine eight and so this is behind your bundle at tab 10.
01:29:46 thank you this is a a report um which attaches a leaflet um produced by you on behalf of the notting hill img and regarding something called the the
01:29:58 and regarding something called the the metro youth demonstration which was held in uh in june 1972 um now this demonstration i think mr corbin was in relation to
01:30:10 corbin was in relation to the metro youth club which was a was in notting hill and and was popular within the black community at that time right and i think that the march was um concerning um the police's uh
01:30:22 um the police's uh raids and arrests club in paragraph two it says um the the assessment uh mr corbin urges is the next time a demonstration
01:30:36 demonstration uh i think i should say occurs um less attention
01:30:40 attention brackets no attention should be paid to the police who helped formulate the roof um why why have have you said uh why why why was that something that you advocated
01:30:54 you advocated mr corbin no to to not engage with the police
01:30:55 police for a demonstration i
01:31:02 i don't know uh i'm just thinking you see well
01:31:03 see well it depends what the police wanted to do and what the metro youth wanted to do i mean it
01:31:08 mean it it's if we look at the second page yeah i i uh i mean you see sometimes the police would be trying to
01:31:20 police would be trying to not help us obviously yeah okay thank you obviously but so
01:31:27 i can't remember the the details right um well
01:31:28 um well if i just read um paragraph three under the heading of assessment um this is this is a document that i think you produce so that this might help really memory looks um
01:31:41 really memory looks um the turnout was about i don't remember if my typewriter looked like that it looks like a different timeline uh the turnout was about 60 people at the round oh yeah down there but it's less than three yeah okay
01:31:52 less than three yeah okay 40 people at the start of the march and 30 when it reached portobello road after returning from harrow road the turnout was not very good but the
01:32:07 the turnout was not very good but the numbers are not at all important in any critical sense for this type of demo the tactics of taking the demo down portobello road was proved to be absolutely correct many leaflets were given to people there a lot of people talked about the matter
01:32:19 about the matter because of the focus the 30 or so march has created the police completely foiled they could not follow in their van oh it means we're completely forward yeah
01:32:30 means we're completely forward yeah sorry where completely yeah i see that i typed that one and then the next sentence which has been quoted in the report says next time less attention no attention should be played to the police
01:32:41 should be played to the police who helped formulate the route which in part went via empty streets uh in which it was not uh i think i should say possible yeah but i think it was possible and asked to present ideas to many people
01:32:55 asked to present ideas to many people yeah you see the rng's idea was that you see
01:32:56 see was presenting ideas to people so marching down empty streets which is what the police were advising was not helpful no i i can say that i'm glad we did go
01:33:10 say that i'm glad we did go down portobello road it didn't cause any people any trouble and uh our leaflets whatever they were about at the time got more traction just just in terms of
01:33:21 got more traction just just in terms of of the interaction with the police which you see the police can't try you see they act as if they are in charge of people's right to protest and of course they're still doing that and i think
01:33:32 still doing that and i think there have been occasions recently to be fair the police have said okay okay mr corbin or whoever you guys want to go that way all right and they'll just say yes but at this time in nottingham the police were uh well anxious to
01:33:47 the police were uh well anxious to prevent us getting our message across i would say
01:33:51 would say as a result of that it was a peaceful message we weren't wasn't anything dangerous or violent to my recollection in baltimore did you refuse to interact with the police as a result of that mr corbin
01:34:03 police as a result of that mr corbin well i i didn't seek to interact with the police but when it became necessary or they asked me questions i would i would uh i would interact
01:34:16 interact i mean later on in the squatting movement again it was sometimes necessary to interact with the police
01:34:20 police um but that's what i would say i mean we were running our own show as far as i'm concerned and if the police wanted to advise a source
01:34:34 wanted to advise a source tell us where we should go we would listen to what they say but you know we had to maintain that we had the right to protest and demonstrate where we
01:34:42 where we wanted a subject to not endangering life and limb or whatever of course obviously
01:34:55 so is this a an appropriate point for a short break yes um handwriters need uh arrest and they have yes
01:35:05 yes 15 minutes well that's fine sir john thank you very much thank you thank you
01:35:15 good morning everyone we will now take a break i will remind those in the virtual hearing room to remember to join your breakout rooms please the time is now 11 15 am so we shall resume at 11 30 am thank you
01:35:40 oh
01:49:27 good morning everyone and welcome back i will now hand over to the chairman to continue proceedings chairman thank you
01:49:32 you mr warner thank you sir uh mr corbin um i'd like now to turn to a report um please which deals with your proposal as a
01:49:49 a as a election candidate um it's ucpi uh five zeros one seven eight one four it's that's a tab 39 sir
01:50:06 thank you uh this is a a new thing of um the south london branch of the img i'm interested in paragraph six on page two
01:50:24 thank you and i'll just read this paragraph for the transcript privacy introduced the second major item on the agenda the glc elections and said that the img intended to stand
01:50:37 to stand for candidates the proposals put before the aggregate were that piers corbyn should be the img candidate for lambeth central and that the great
01:50:49 lambeth central and that the great majority of south london resources should be devoted to his electoral um mr corbin can you remember how you became came to be proposed as a as a glc candidate um
01:51:04 as a glc candidate um i i do remember the meeting yes and i was there and people just said that i should do it and i
01:51:11 i thought about it and said well okay that'll be an honour so i did and presumably in this this election campaign you did the usual things that candidate does uh leaflets
01:51:24 uh leaflets um canvassing things like that yes that's right a standard sort of stuff right um and if we look at another report please um it's ucpi
01:51:39 another report please um it's ucpi at five zeros one seven three three five it's a tab 40.
01:51:45 and it's paragraph four we're interested in
01:51:47 in for now
01:51:50 halfway down
01:51:56 thank you this is this is a slightly later report about just over a month later the election and paragraph four reads privacy the campaign manager
01:52:13 campaign manager reported that the majority of proposed public meetings would be cancelled because they appeared unlikely to attract any sizeable audience it was also evidence evident
01:52:25 he said that there was insufficient time and resources to canvas the whole of the constituents although it was essential to distribute corbyn's electoral manifesto as widely as possible the plan of activity was that during the forthcoming week
01:52:37 forthcoming week all available comrades would distribute leaflets throughout the day canvas from 6 pm until 9 pm and afterwards go fly posting in teams of three um
01:52:50 fly posting in teams of three um is is that reference to fly posting mr corbin
01:52:54 corbin likely to be illegal fly posting or or not
01:53:00 well i don't know it depends what they decided to do but there was a fair amount of corrugated iron around those in the area and i think often people
01:53:11 in the area and i think often people would put flyposting on corrugated iron uh would they put it on places which would
01:53:12 would uh well it might be well i don't know illegal but possibly unlawful i i don't know okay and fly posters will just put flyposting around
01:53:23 flyposting around as as in as they do in these days more more generally mr corbin how do you how do you feel
01:53:34 do you feel um how did you feel learning that information like this was being reported on your activities
01:53:45 reported on your activities to the police you mean well you mean learning now that this is reported yes well uh two things one is it's pretty innocuous what we were doing
01:53:56 what we were doing it's fly posting um am i concerned about these ongoing reports well yes because they're an intrusion in in into privacy
01:54:08 in into privacy without justification because if you can you know spend this effort looking at
01:54:15 camp election campaign groups fly posting or not then well on ask what about all the other candidates i mean there would have been you know
01:54:26 i mean there would have been you know labour party conservative party liberal liberal at the time i suppose all sorts of people all of whom might have done fly posting but were i think not been spied upon by the police when why was that
01:54:41 police when why was that why not spy on all of them and they're on the police resources to do this i mean
01:54:46 mean uh you know i'm not quite sure what the spying purpose was for here because it's unimaginable that in an election campaign we would be doing anything
01:55:00 campaign we would be doing anything dangerous you know thank you mr corbin um
01:55:04 um i'd like please to um look at the paragraph
01:55:07 paragraph above um the one we've just read which is paragraph three it's on a different topic but it's contained within the same report
01:55:19 contained within the same report uh thank you i'll just read um that that paragraph the the agenda of the meeting which was chaired by privacy comprised two items namely a report and discussion on piers corbyn's electoral campaign which we've just considered
01:55:33 campaign which we've just considered uh with allocation of comrades for tasks in the coming week followed by a discussion on the anti-fascist demonstration to be held in haringey on saturday the 23rd
01:55:44 23rd of april and if we turn to page two please
01:55:49 thank you just the top of page two
01:55:56 and we can see here that this is the second item being discussed img intervention in the anti-fascist demonstration to take place on saturday the 23rd of april 1977
01:56:11 on saturday the 23rd of april 1977 at duckett's common north eight he explained
01:56:15 explained that some 25 political and anti-racist organizations were joining to form a united front to oppose
01:56:23 oppose the national front march and implement the img's policy on no platform for fascists um uh mr corbin that the events that are being um
01:56:33 being um discussed there were what came to be known as as the battle of wood green uh in 1977.
01:56:44 uh in 1977. um was i there well that was going to be my question do you do
01:56:51 wood green in april 1977 for that demonstration um i don't know uh was tariq ali a leading light in this
01:57:03 light in this event uh uh i'm not sure mr corbin um it was an event which uh took place as i say in april 1977 um well it was on saint george's day in 1977 and she's been through
01:57:18 1977 and she's been through a large demonstration and by a number of uh groups opposing a national front yeah yeah yeah no i think i would have been there and i think i remember vaguely uh
01:57:35 i well if that or another event up there i remember taric ali speaking from the back of a uh truck or lorry and me also speaking from the back of a truck or lorry probably a number of people speaking um
01:57:54 probably a number of people speaking um i don't remember what you would describe as a battle of wood green though well i mean i think the idea was that just sheer numbers of of this united front against fascism sheer numbers of people like that present
01:58:05 present would ensure that the national front wouldn't be able to pass through whatever they had in mind because the police
01:58:13 police obviously would make sure that the two groups stayed apart the consequence of which would be that uh well quite likely that i'm the the well i said i'm g but i mean this no this united front wouldn't be
01:58:27 this no this united front wouldn't be able to go anywhere beyond wherever they were but the national front wouldn't be able to either which was the intention to stop them spreading uh
01:58:38 intention to stop them spreading uh racist propaganda well thank you mr corbin the the the incident that that did occur in in april
01:58:46 in april okay g7 at wood wood green resulted um uh resulted in in some disorder do you remember um violence or disorder of any kind happening at the ins the march that you went to
01:59:01 the march that you went to no i don't the thing that comes to my mind was
01:59:04 mind was me me speaking with tariq ali and others from the back of a lorry there was a big crowd around but i don't i don't remember disorder i mean it could be that
01:59:15 could be that disorder was occurred and was then the only thing reported in the media as like the end of this gigantic 500 000 rally that's just happened last weekend and at the end of it the police i have to say attacked a
01:59:28 the police i have to say attacked a music a music sub event in speaker's corner hyde park and that got reported in the media as if that was what the 500 000 uh
01:59:40 000 uh possibly at least demonstration was about which of course it wasn't so you know i this report here might be partly from uh media or possibly the eyes of a policeman who was concentrating
01:59:52 policeman who was concentrating as as he would naturally i would say on any disorder that take took place but no honestly i don't remember i don't remember disorder
02:00:05 remember i don't remember disorder uh at the event i am remembering which i've
02:00:10 i've sounds familiar because there were these united fronts of action to uh oppose fascistic or fascist groups um thank you mr government that there was there was another march
02:00:21 was there was another march um in august of 1977 in lewisham okay which was a similar march um against the national front
02:00:33 against the national front um okay are you able to remember whether you were at that event um
02:00:39 no i mean i didn't go to every event you know
02:00:43 know because uh did you did you attend many uh events uh marches opposing the national quite a lot yeah i mean i would have
02:00:50 have turned up at most anti nf uh rallies or perhaps half of them i i i i don't know i don't remember lewisham but i do remember this
02:01:02 but i do remember this uh something definitely happening in haringey that i was at lewisham um i don't know you'd have to tell me which part of lewisham it was and it might sir
02:01:10 might sir might come to mind it was a big march through the center of lewisham in august 1977. um it doesn't matter if you can't
02:01:21 1977. um it doesn't matter if you can't remember that one i'm i'm interested in what more generally did you have much involvement with the anti-nazi league as around this time well yeah the i i went along to anti-nazi league events
02:01:36 anti-nazi league events which were a kind of combination of united fronts uh against what was thought to be fascistic tendencies i.e nazi tendencies um
02:01:53 i.e nazi tendencies um were propagated by people like the uh national front party um uh but i didn't have any any key involvement no i just went along with a
02:02:05 with a active supporter of the um anti-nazi league i i see and um did the img have a a
02:02:19 did the img have a a a particular policy on on confronting or opposing
02:02:22 opposing right-wing groups at this time yeah i think so
02:02:27 think so i mean it would be well i remember we supported the anti-nazi league but i don't think the img was the main force in the anti-nazi league i think there were a lot of groups involved united arts league and it
02:02:34 it became something which um had a lot of happy music and did events
02:02:49 had a lot of happy music and did events on tap and common for example which were you know i think good creative events in fact irrespective of the politics they you know got young people um
02:03:02 you know involved in in thank you mr corbin um just finally on this
02:03:03 this subject um that these you told us a moment ago that you went to a number of these
02:03:07 these these marches did you witness any disorder or violence at any of these marches that you went to um well actually no you see i think these
02:03:18 these anl things and and other anti-fascist demos they were meant to be just largely large groups of people
02:03:30 people getting in the way of whatever the national front wanted to to do now i i there may well have been uh uh confrontations indeed or mostly there were confrontations between
02:03:42 there were confrontations between the police on the nf or the police and the anti-nazi leagues because both sides would be trying to do something um ostensibly to get to the other but
02:03:53 ostensibly to get to the other but really it was this kind of symbolic uh fracas in my opinion well i don't remember being i was never personally involved in those sort of fractals
02:04:05 fractals thank you mr corbin and can we turn to a separate
02:04:09 separate uh topic please um and bring up reports ucpi
02:04:14 ucpi five zeros two one four eight five that's a tab 36.
02:04:26 that's a tab 36. thank you and if we just zoom in on the the paragraph one um this is a report mr corbin uh submitted by a
02:04:33 by a thank you a police officer with it with a copy of um a fair fight internal document listing supporters of the campaign and can you just tell us briefly please what what the the fair fight
02:04:46 the the fair fight uh campaign was about yeah certainly with pleasure actually but i would say at the outset this fair fight
02:04:50 fight was a kind of absolutely totally passive uh protest about fair rises
02:05:04 uh protest about fair rises why this should involve you know police surveillance like this i have no idea but the fair fight campaign happened because
02:05:17 happened because bromley council had been to court to prevent the glc or well london transport but it was then the glc's involvement in that
02:05:30 the glc's involvement in that um reducing fares and bromley council made the fares go up so then a fair fight campaign was formed it was just to fight these fair
02:05:41 these fair increases and make them go down and what we were doing was we issued i mean not me personally but i was part of the setup which did this issued little booklets of what were called deferred
02:05:52 called deferred payment slips whereby if you traveled on the tube or the bus you would hand in a p and you would buy a 10 p ticket that was the smallest ticket you could do
02:06:05 the smallest ticket you could do and you would say only that i today traveled from a to b and attended a 10p ticket and if you wish to recover the sun due
02:06:16 wish to recover the sun due please contact me at let me give your name and address so so these were handed in in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands now of course it's up to london transport then to chase people
02:06:32 transport then to chase people who haven't paid what they said then should be the fair um [Music]
02:06:37 [Music] and uh that was how the protest took place and it was designed to cause disruption to the payment systems of
02:06:44 of london transport and therefore hopefully get
02:06:49 get fair reductions now without going into the details i ended up being the test case
02:06:50 case for this in the in the uh high court in it was called corbin versus saunders and we didn't
02:07:03 corbin versus saunders and we didn't win that case and these deferred payment slips were not allowed but the consequence of the campaign was that actually the fares did did go down again thank you i could go
02:07:16 did go down again thank you i could go into the legalities of what happened in the high court but it was all about whether or not there was a comma presence and the jokes thing that the law should be read as if there was not a common presence when there was a common present in the
02:07:27 when there was a common present in the sentence traveling on the tube without having played with some jew comma and we've intended to avoid payment there thank you mr corbin we we don't need to go into the legal okay all right it's
02:07:39 go into the legal okay all right it's just that i remembered in detail and i was being surprised that i did so i thought i'd tell you we've we've got we've got um plenty of detail on that from your statement i'm just interested in knowing that this campaign
02:07:49 campaign what what sort of methods did you use did you protest did you produce leaflets what sort of things did you do
02:07:56 you do the only thing we were doing was we might have had some placards and leaflets yeah we did have leaflets we had leaflets well printed leaflets i remember which everybody read and it then it i think you had a
02:08:10 and it then it i think you had a deferred payment slip on the bottom of each leaf that you could tear off and use
02:08:12 use and we handed out little booklets of deferred payment slips as well um that was the sum total of the campaign very
02:08:25 campaign very very focused very specific completely uh passive is it right mr corbin that the campaign had quite a wide support base from other groups oh absolutely it was hugely supported i remember giving out lucratives on on the
02:08:37 lucratives on on the tube train and everybody who took the leaflet ready instantly as if it was well you know the readership of our league groups was much higher than newspapers but it can we just turn to page five of this
02:08:50 this what and we i think we can see some of the groups might be mentioned there now i'm afraid this is this is the wrong way around but um that the bottom half of this
02:09:02 of this page we can see they've sold it for me thank you
02:09:05 thank you you can see reference to the young liberals east london libertarians uh other groups thank you light wolf and forest trades council claimants union the socialist worker international socialists
02:09:20 international socialists um it's right that this this campaign attracted
02:09:23 attracted quite a lot of wide absolutely was mass support
02:09:24 support mass opposition to these fair rises which had been imposed unjustly i would say this was an unjust law by the way unjustly by bromley council by some
02:09:35 unjustly by bromley council by some something they did in the in the courts thanks to democratic decision by the uh glc and london transport to hold fares down
02:09:50 down thank you this this report can come down now um i'd like to ask you please about about a slightly different topic okay um it's correct isn't it that you
02:09:55 you became involved in a a number of um groups concerned with the situation in northern ireland in the 1970s right
02:10:06 in the 1970s right yes and is that what was that through the img or was that entirely separately um
02:10:17 entirely separately um it was mostly through the iron g but i was
02:10:21 was always slightly or certainly interested in
02:10:25 in ireland because i remember as a child visiting ireland um visiting galway um with my parents uh so i i was interested anyway in ireland yes
02:10:39 anyway in ireland yes um there are three groups which we'll we'll talk about and that the first is uh uh the isc um i think it's right isn't it that the img
02:10:52 img um the ioc is our solidarity campaign i should today the irish solidarity campaign
02:10:58 campaign it's right isn't it that the img um had quite some influence within the isc yes that's true anything the img was involved in or initiated would often have the word solidarity in it so it's like vietnam's
02:11:10 solidarity in it so it's like vietnam's solidarity campaign is sort of there to see
02:11:15 see um what was this influence was it was it a an attempt to try and control the isc or or or was it more based on a similar support i think it was a similar support thing i mean i wasn't very involved but i did go
02:11:30 wasn't very involved but i did go to to events you see the img idea in my mind then was you to support or organize or initiate as the most effective groups in order to present ideas to a wider
02:11:46 in order to present ideas to a wider wider layer wider population so that didn't necessitate the img controlling things totally although some people like controlling things i
02:11:55 things i i think the important thing was to build these groups so that they would gain traction um just in terms of the the img's policy towards northern ireland um
02:12:13 policy towards northern ireland um could we could we bring up ucpi uh six zeroes eight one two nine that was behind tab seven sir that's paragraph 13 on page two please
02:12:30 i should say this is a a pre-conference meeting
02:12:31 meeting for the all london members of the img and just in terms of the this issue and paragraph
02:12:37 paragraph 13 reads after this peter gowan spoke on the question of ireland and img's attitude towards the situation there
02:12:48 there he said the political committee of the img intended changing their official slogan on ireland from victory to the ira i think that should say to
02:13:02 say to solidarity with the ira this measure was being taken as it was felt the former slogan was ambiguous can we take from this mr corbin that the img supported the ira
02:13:14 the img supported the ira uh within uh the conflict in northern ireland
02:13:18 ireland well i think from that you can say that this support if you want support to mean literal support for what they do as it was ambiguous now i remember peter gowan
02:13:30 gowan he was the great guy a fantastic historian
02:13:35 historian uh and he's passed away unfortunately but he was you know a really wonderful fellow and very very knowledgeable on history so you know he would have been
02:13:46 you know he would have been saying things uh which people would listen to
02:13:48 listen to um was that reflection i think the solidarity with the ira would mean we support the rights of um
02:14:00 we support the rights of um or the campaign for a united ireland um and although well obviously there's lots of things ira were doing or appear to be doing which i think we would not support but the word solidarity here means a kind of
02:14:18 word solidarity here means a kind of general support for the age that's what i would say what what would those my understanding of it and this phrase i'm not sure if that victory to the irs or the slogan was around for a long time or not but it is clearly
02:14:30 clearly could be misunderstood by all sorts of people
02:14:33 people so it was right to change it if if in fact it
02:14:34 fact it existed as a significant thing anyway
02:14:42 just so we're clear you've said that the img would support some aspects of the iras well i.e the aims
02:14:53 aims that is there should be a united ireland uh under the division of ireland in the uh
02:14:56 uh see 1921 division of ireland was was wrong and you know the thought of ireland should have stayed as ireland but yeah you know that's of course
02:15:10 course it wasn't the case i mean there was a you know we still do have a divided island would the img have supported the tactics used by the ira or not
02:15:21 the tactics used by the ira or not i'd i would say no well it's evangelist tactics you are because you see the ira or their political win xing fame
02:15:32 ira or their political win xing fame shin fame did all sorts of things which no one would disagree with like they built community groups to help people who were
02:15:36 who were unemployed and all that sort of stuff so you know they covered it covered a broad front of
02:15:41 front of of activities um
02:15:49 and i would have thought really that when they talk about solidarity with the ira
02:15:50 ira it meant they would be in reality having solidarity with sinn fein which was the political uh angle of the [Music]
02:16:02 [Music] struggle for a united on i see um turning please um to the isc um and we can take this document down you've told us in
02:16:13 you've told us in in your statement the isc was established to provide a network of the for the nationalist community in in uk
02:16:22 uk what was your involvement in the isc um well small when there were meetings you see i think the isc probably coordinated things like the ant
02:16:35 coordinated things like the ant or coordinated with the anti-knots sorry not anti-muscle the anti-internment league ail which was and that did interest me
02:16:46 which was and that did interest me um and that would work with other things the troops out movement was another thing so they were all different groups which were mobilizing on the
02:16:51 on the irish question and i personally and i think most img members would definitely go along to
02:17:08 would definitely go along to things involved with the anti-internally because of course i don't know if you know yourself but at that time the british government were arresting people in ireland who they deemed to be dangerous and in turning them imprisoning them without trial and this you see is against all
02:17:24 trial and this you see is against all democratic processes under english law so
02:17:29 so we were just campaigning for very basic human rights thank you is it fair to say you you attended meetings of all three of these groups so it's the isc
02:17:43 i might have but not in in any large role i mean the anti-internal league would have been the main thing i would have come along too
02:17:53 too so can we take it from that you weren't involved in any management or organization no no not involved in any management organization of these these these campaigns and in terms of their
02:18:07 campaigns and in terms of their activities and what would they do are we talking about marches and leaflets and things like that
02:18:14 that yeah that marches and leave with some kill burn i remember marches and leaflets in shepherd's bush green uh because it's a big
02:18:19 big kind of green triangle the shepherds was green and that would be a good place for meeting quite a lot of irish irish people living around there
02:18:30 irish people living around there and uh there were quite a few iris people were because at that time you see 19 well it depends what time this was but
02:18:41 but between 1972 and 1975 i was squatting in elgin avenue paddington and there were quite a number of irish people
02:18:47 people squatting as well some of whom were undoubtedly republicans in the sense they
02:18:57 they were supported the republican courts that doesn't mean they were involved in the ira in any way but uh that can that sort of fact the label
02:19:09 that can that sort of fact the label republican can lead to confusion i mean republican means supporting a republic of all
02:19:11 of all ireland that's what it meant in those days anyway i think what may be obvious is that all three of these groups are are republican groups
02:19:23 republican groups yes in one way absolutely absolutely in terms of their uh their aims did any of these groups advocate for the use of violence in furtherance um no not to my knowledge uh
02:19:39 um no not to my knowledge uh did they support the use of violence by others in northern ireland on either side of the divide uh
02:19:48 divide uh well i don't think so no no i mean you see the
02:19:52 see the uh i mean the violence from both sides was
02:19:56 was was in the end i would say counterproductive and in the end of course we have peace now in northern ireland or relative peace which uh has got rid of the the troubles
02:20:10 uh has got rid of the the troubles they call them in your memory of being involved in these groups did did many of the people who were members or at meetings advocate individually for the use of violence and furtherance of the causes they supported
02:20:25 they supported no i remember when bloody sunday happened
02:20:26 happened going on big demo a big demonstration at trafalgar square or it was must have been the day after or something uh trafalgar square and down and down whitehall and downing street and uh
02:20:45 the police tried to break it up and then there were various scuffles with the police
02:20:48 police but um that's all they were and i i was arrested
02:20:52 arrested uh in fact for something and i think i got a
02:20:56 got a uh a minor thing a conditional discharge or something so it wasn't wasn't a big deal but then you have to realize what was happening i mean the british army had shot at
02:21:08 the british army had shot at defenseless people and so there was a huge amount of anger and that was uh you know a big a big demonstration but that was the anger was against what the british army had done
02:21:22 the british army had done and the british army was effectively suppressing the people's rights and which had included in turning in tournament of people uh in a totally undemocratic fashion
02:21:39 thank you mr corbin um i'd like to move on to something you mentioned a moment ago
02:21:42 ago and please you mentioned that you were involved in uh in the squatting movement from and i think it's from about 1972 onwards correct yes and um you've said uh
02:21:55 correct yes and um you've said uh in your witness statement that this this was perhaps through the img that you became involved in this ah no it wasn't rng uh
02:22:08 no it wasn't rng uh at that time i was a member of the rng i see
02:22:08 see i became involved in squatting because i lived in notting hill at 170 wendell street and
02:22:22 street and i took the landlord to a rent tribunal and got the rent halved and then the landlord gave me a notice to quit because we did not have furnished tenancy security and
02:22:33 furnished tenancy security and my elder brother who was sharing the flat with me not jeremy who's younger than me the elder brother called andrew called in who has unfortunately since
02:22:43 since died but he said to me he said why don't we squat he is why don't we squat
02:22:53 squat and i said don't be silly only hippies do that
02:22:54 do that anyway nevertheless we did spot um and the img view of this was that uh maybe this was a wow it's okay
02:23:07 maybe this was a wow it's okay you squatted but when i started saying oh we should organize things in squatting because we have to stop evictions they some of them people in the rmg were opposed to this and said no we should do things which they described as the
02:23:20 things which they described as the the real tenant struggle in notting hill i see
02:23:23 i see but i did convince them that they should actually support what i was doing and they did in the end and uh
02:23:28 and uh we achieved very great things there
02:23:40 because of my housing needs i see and the
02:23:43 the we can take it from that camry that the certainly the img involvement um the faction i think you said
02:23:50 said was in your statement was quite small at least
02:23:54 least well yeah it was we set up an img squatting fraction to sort of explain to the img people what was going on um
02:24:02 on um and also get practical support for when we
02:24:06 we did things and that actually was a good thing to do because in the end we were very successful and the img or other left groups realize the importance of
02:24:18 importance of this form of action to help house the homeless i see um can we please bring up uh ucpi uh six zeroes nine five zero please it's a tab 27 sir
02:24:41 mrs corbin this is a report submitted and by a police officer um with a copy of easy one one one uh which is
02:24:48 is which was a document which we'll look at in a moment published by the maida hills squatters and tenants association yeah and i think this this was produced after
02:24:57 after the what what's described as the successful campaign of the elgin avenue squatters that's right which led to them all being rehoused and this is a
02:25:08 all being rehoused and this is a campaign that you were involved in well i was the key organizer the organizer yes um the just in brief it's right isn't it that this this was a a squat that you had become involved in
02:25:21 a squat that you had become involved in in vacant houses due for demolition yes and
02:25:24 and and after a campaign by you and others the council agreed to uh re-house you all um and and so you left um
02:25:30 left um can we turn uh please to uh page nine of this document
02:25:46 thank you and i'm interested in in the section that reads demolition in the bottom left of the page uh bottom left but don't worry it will come up
02:25:56 this is this is a document that you produced
02:25:58 produced uh possibly with others um and uh demolition the the part under demolition said yes
02:26:07 said yes on uh on the dawn of thursday october the 16th
02:26:11 the 16th 200 police were in elgin avenue outside the empty houses they had been booked for the eviction um if we had not gone um can we can we take it from that mr corbin that
02:26:25 corbin that in the process of the attempted eviction the police had attended in some numbers uh if you hadn't agreed to leave well i think yeah what happened
02:26:36 think yeah what happened october the 15th at noon or thereabouts the uh
02:26:42 the uh glc and police agreed that we would all be rehoused and the police would do if you like
02:26:46 you like supervise an assist are leaving and we went
02:26:47 went to south london in vans uh or whatever organized by the glc um now we didn't know but
02:26:58 um now we didn't know but in fact the police had a plan that if we hadn't left they would have that would have been a mass eviction on the following day probably well
02:27:10 on the following day probably well they're like doing these things at 6 a.m so probably it would have been a dawn on the next day uh but curiously and that's when the demolition began the police carried out their exercise anyway and all turned up but which was obviously completely
02:27:23 but which was obviously completely unnecessary because nobody was going to try and
02:27:26 try and get back in there because we'd all been successfully rehoused but you know these things have the life of their own don't they could we turn to page two please but i remember turning up there at dawn
02:27:39 remember turning up there at dawn because i got a phone call to the effect that
02:27:42 that or some call how did i know to be there thank you
02:27:42 thank you and it's it's the boss yeah well we knew the demolition was going to happen so we went there to watch thank you mr corbin um i'm just going to read a small section out then
02:27:53 read a small section out then i'll ask you a question or two about it um
02:27:57 um it's the very bottom part of this page that
02:27:58 that says um our collective organized strength and support meant we could physically resist in a confrontation uh human justice would be
02:28:10 would be on our side so whatever happened the glc had to lose and we had to win yeah now in your in your witness statement you've told us that um
02:28:22 that um an announcement which was made in this case to defend the squad against eviction
02:28:23 eviction often led to re housing excuse me um was was an announcement to physically resist the eviction therefore a tactic or was this
02:28:37 therefore a tactic or was this uh something that was realistically going to happen if they haven't well i think realistically that a crowd of people standing around
02:28:48 a crowd of people standing around outside a building even though we built barricades would not prevent the the police or the bailiffs gaining control
02:29:00 bailiffs gaining control um so our barricades were although physical
02:29:07 physical when their effect they were largely or in fact primarily symbolic and political
02:29:08 political to say you know what's behind the barricades is right and the police trying to or the bailiffs trying to remove people is wrong and we put forward clear demands about
02:29:25 and we put forward clear demands about the right to housing for everybody and the need to use up empty properties which the glc had and um glc councillors to give them their credit
02:29:36 their credit accepted our argument only after we had projected this idea across people and got support from local tenant associations and westminster trade council and then then they gave him and uh richard balf
02:29:50 richard balf the chair of the housing management committee um organized uh adequate rehousing i remember having a meeting with him and others in
02:30:03 others in the town hall where he had to basically shouted
02:30:04 shouted glc offices to tell them they had to find this housing for these people by a certain time i wish they did because the glc had huge resources of empty properties
02:30:19 resources of empty properties thank you mr corbin could we look at the bottom of page three of this document please
02:30:25 yes sir i remember typing this this was a long time ago but uh there you are right um and now this this uh page
02:30:36 this this uh page has what appears to be a quote from you at the bottom i'm just going to read out i do apologize that it's not that clear i think it reads um even though we had more
02:30:48 more than average for london's homeless of desperate disorientated people our organization and policies won at the end people were more ready to physically confront the police and states than i expected
02:31:03 states than i expected the street meets were the pooling and creating of all the pooling of all our strength our victory proves the indomitable spirit of humanity
02:31:14 spirit of humanity the lessons of elgin and other struggles before it everywhere will be used in a thousand struggles to come in housing and workplace until capitalism is finally smashed
02:31:30 finally smashed and evolved uh our world will be ours um mr corbin i'm just interested in in the that
02:31:30 that where it says uh the people were more ready to physically confront the police and state than i expected that seems to suggest that there was
02:31:44 suggest that there was at least a realistic prospect that there could have been some uh violence
02:31:50 would you agree with that well but where would the violence come from you see what it meant was we would call upon people in the buildings to stay put which they did
02:32:01 did in the weekend before we had what 200 people in the street only three people left only three people left
02:32:06 left despite the fact they knew that there was an eviction imminent at that point because we haven't got a offer of housing that happened the weekend before it came on the monday morning um
02:32:19 uh what i meant was you wanted people to stay in the buildings and uh be in the way of any police or bail if you could who would try and come in so any violence would have to come from the police and bailiffs and there were there would be a crowd
02:32:33 and there were there would be a crowd outside from local squatters there were hundreds of squats in the area uh and they indeed turned up and stood outside on the on the day when we were rehoused in that case it was for
02:32:44 case it was for solidarity i i get you know moral support if you like um that's what that means uh i i
02:32:57 that's what that means uh i i it doesn't mean that people were ready to take up armed struggle or anything approaching that against the state as i said the purpose of these things was political persuasion of those in power
02:33:11 political persuasion of those in power so that it became politically necessary for them to do what we wanted i.e how's the homeless could we just have a quick look at the top half of this page
02:33:24 i'm remembering these people now i see them
02:33:26 them here williams he's he's died now um no now he wasn't a squatter he was well he was but not there he was a supporter
02:33:37 supporter um you'll be able to see that the fir in fact the second person who is mentioned on this uh uh leaflet is listed as 25 single michael johnston 25 single
02:33:50 single i'm interested in what he says towards the end of the paragraph ascribed to him and it says if they hadn't given us re-housing and let us inspect it and if the sheriff and police had tried to break the barricades without our consent
02:34:05 barricades without our consent i would have thrown rubbish and card i think that possibly says i was ready to no sand so sorry sound you're quite right i was ready to meet their violence with violence
02:34:14 violence if it meant prison it meant prison how how is how does that fit with what what you've just told us well i'm telling you what i thought and how we
02:34:25 how we initiated or how i organized the struggle um there's an individual there who's who's saying he would have been ready to
02:34:37 ready to uh commit well to meet their violence with violence that's what he says
02:34:50 that's what he says so i wrote down what he said that's all it doesn't mean that we were putting forward such a thing but certainly that that member meaning me writing this newspaper this news sheet
02:35:01 sheet and the uh sort of small committee of immediate
02:35:05 immediate active supporters some of whom might have been in the ing but it's uh we were a self organized democratic uh set up in
02:35:21 organized democratic uh set up in elgin avenue i don't remember this guy i think 25 means not his age but the house he lived in so it's number 25 elgin avenue you've said um towards uh uh you've said in your statement
02:35:34 in your statement you you were surprised at the readiness of
02:35:35 of people um to confront what what did you mean by that what why why were you surprised by it well
02:35:52 a threat of eviction is a very fearful thing and what had surprised me was the weekend before i i said to everybody look
02:35:56 look we're going to build barricades we're still trying to make the glc rehouse us all they may come evict us next week um please stay port uh
02:36:10 please stay port uh and people did despite how fearful it was if you think about it you know because people have seen evictions in other places they've seen the police storming in
02:36:23 storming in or the bailiffs storming in back by the police and on occasions there might be a rest but it's a scary thing and i said well it is a scary thing but if we stay put they
02:36:34 if we stay put they may indeed rehouse us which is what happened
02:36:35 happened so the resilience if you like was uh
02:36:43 people deciding to risk you know an unknown potentially uh you know hurtful situation uh you know as i said only three people left the street
02:36:55 three people left the street in that previous weekend and that really you know i knew when that i knew at that point we'd win that monday morning i knew we'd win
02:37:06 that monday morning i knew we'd win because only three people had left the street and the glc could see us they could see the banners they could see the barricades and they thought well okay they're actually right these
02:37:23 okay they're actually right these squatters are actually right so we will so this thing about risking things wasn't about violence it's about people being ready to
02:37:29 well face violence from the police and bailiffs if you like i mean i would regard breaking down the door with a sledgehammer as a violent act okay maybe not against a person but
02:37:45 okay maybe not against a person but uh in it it is a violent act i would say thank you mr corbin just just lastly on this the the very last you've said in the bottom of the page is about
02:37:54 about uh smashing capitalism um can we take it from that that that your your involvement in the scottish movement was was linked to your political
02:38:00 political uh activities at that time and the two well no i was in the img so i would tag on these sort of things but um you know
02:38:16 things but um you know that wasn't my motive for being involved in squatting my motive for being involved in squatting was to uh one house myself and two house others and the consequence in the end of this victory in elgin avenue
02:38:28 victory in elgin avenue was that the glc revised its whole policies completely there were 10 000 squats in glc properties and uh two years later the glc gave tenancies to all 10
02:38:44 gave tenancies to all 10 000 glc squads and that followed on from us
02:38:48 us and that was a fantastic fantastic victory
02:38:48 victory and um achieved without any violence or even a single arrest or a
02:38:59 a and there were a single arrest at the barricades i mean people did get arrested for sometimes entering others entering squats or whatever but you know in terms of our campaign we were
02:39:12 were totally peaceful and the rmg went along with what i was doing there wasn't any attempt to make us more anything or whatever they said yeah well that's fantastic please you know you've achieved a lot of things here
02:39:24 here um thank you mr corbin you i i think um shortly after became also became involved in a in a similar issue at the huntley street squad yes could we please bring up ucpi five zeroes two one two one five
02:39:46 thank you and and that this is a a report of a meeting at which you spoke i think on behalf of the huntley street squatters campaign as a meeting held in conway hall in april
02:39:56 april march rather than 1979 and it was uh under the held under the auspices of the people's
02:40:07 auspices of the people's commission um and was concerning persons unknown
02:40:12 unknown and i think that was connected to the person's unknown trial which was um around at that time the the report notes that um the majority of those present were from persons unknown and friends of astrid pro
02:40:27 astrid pro and says among other groups represented were the anarchist black cross the london workers group gay activist alliance the sus campaign and then we see the huntley street squatters campaign um
02:40:41 campaign um the these a number of these groups are are anarchist groups corbyn but what connections did you have other than speaking at meetings like this with with anarchist groups
02:40:53 anarchist groups uh well i knew some of these anarchist group operatives but um i'm trying to remember
02:41:05 i do remember meetings in conway hall but what was this uh well if it's going to
02:41:06 to commission what was that if we scroll down to the second half of the page that might help um paragraph thought thank you if we could just go up a little thank you
02:41:20 go up a little thank you i'll read out what it says david morris acted as the spokesman for the person's unknown and said that the purpose of the people's commission was to examine the evidence of the ways in which the laws were enforced by the police
02:41:35 police and to hold a demonstration against the police later that year okay um
02:41:41 okay um you you told us that you went to some meetings with anarchist groups did you share any of their their aims or objectives well the angel objectives here were about
02:41:54 here were about organizing some sort of tribunal which was aiming to get the police to presumably not do certain things they were doing they said have a panel of judges
02:42:06 they said have a panel of judges i suppose these were judges which were like
02:42:09 like people judges not supposed to getting a judge from a court i i suppose should liberal types be invited to what who is this a document i meant to
02:42:20 what who is this a document i meant to have written or what well no this is a document from the police it's from the police special branch who were posing these questions i understand yeah obviously yeah it's a it's a meeting at which you
02:42:32 it's a meeting at which you spoke yeah yeah yeah yeah your name is on
02:42:35 on the sure no no i'm sure i would have spoken saying look we have to call the police to account which is something which is applies now as well as then
02:42:47 as then uh and well i mean as you know i'm standing as a mayor candidate in in the coming elections and i think the police do have to be uh more accountable um
02:43:00 uh more accountable um that's what my involvement in this would have been about it wouldn't wouldn't have
02:43:06 have meant that i would uh you see i wouldn't have known all of these groups anyway i know some of them that's for sure but oh you suddenly lost that thing it doesn't matter can you hear me yes yes
02:43:20 yes well i'm just just saying that [Music]
02:43:23 [Music] to my mind when i was speaking there that was about holding the police to account so they didn't do things which were um illegal or or unjust
02:43:34 um illegal or or unjust uh the fact that there were the meeting included anarchists is really neither here nor there for for my attendance i mean i don't come or go to meetings based on who's there i come or go to meetings based on
02:43:46 meetings based on what needs to be said to people well which could be there or people who could be perhaps not there but here what was that
02:43:54 was that so is it fair to say this this is as far as you can recall a meeting at which you you shared a common cause with other people who are there
02:44:06 people who are there uh a common cause in terms of calling the police to account yes but beyond that i
02:44:09 that i don't remember any common cause can you can you remember um other meetings as with similar groups anarchist groups on on different causes or is this
02:44:21 different causes or is this no i don't i mean within the squatting movement there were there were all sorts of political groups operating quite a lot of religious groups operating you know harry christmas operating children of god operating
02:44:36 god operating um and different anarchist groups operating
02:44:37 operating and so i just regarded them as people who were operating and hoped they would cooperate when we needed numbers to to make uh make a point
02:44:48 make uh make a point like you know getting someone's gas reconnected if the gas company had disconnected them for example
02:44:57 example um thank you very much mr corbin and there's just one more issue i wanted to ask you a question on briefly um could we please bring up a copy of your witness statement it's ucpi
02:45:11 5034186 and it's page 59 paragraph 173 oh right so i've got it in front of me anyway so you're going to show it it will appear on the screen and yes it's about um
02:45:28 it's about um a section of your statement where you um were asked whether you recall colin clarke who is uh a uc oh yes hn 80. um and you say that you remember him
02:45:42 um and you say that you remember him selling red mole every saturday morning yeah now i i think mr corbin you you have in fact seen a photograph of hn 80 uh before you gave evidence today um now now i i just want to ask you
02:45:54 now i i just want to ask you this please um red mole was a um img publication wasn't it it was um and i think we we know that hn 80 reported on the swp
02:46:05 hn 80 reported on the swp exclusively would it have been very unusual for a a member of the swp to be selling the red mole every saturday oh it would it would that would have been uh
02:46:19 it would that would have been uh not a thing they would do so perhaps i've got
02:46:23 i've got confused about who i saw see i've been shown some photos but they aren't photos i recognized but i do remember the name colin clark now he could have been a policeman infiltrating in the in the is
02:46:34 infiltrating in the in the is the international socialist who who would clearly turn up at things we were at but he wouldn't have sold sold red mold so
02:46:47 sold red mold so perhaps my memory is confused i don't know i mean but i do remember a colin clark
02:46:54 clark and he was quite an intelligent knowledgeable guy uh you know and i didn't suspect him had been a policeman at the time well as i said here it was a good conversationalist
02:47:08 conversationalist mr corbyn thank you very much that those the only questions so perhaps you can refresh my memory i mean
02:47:15 mean have i actually been shown a picture of colleen clark or somebody else you have didn't recognize him so perhaps perhaps this wasn't then colin clarke who was
02:47:26 who was uh long organ hair but i'm thinking i'm describing colin clark accurately um mr corbin it may not matter i just
02:47:39 um mr corbin it may not matter i just thought it was important that you you had an opportunity to know no no thank you i mean i i just wouldn't say that i don't
02:47:51 say that i don't mean uh you know looking back i'm kind of staggered to think oh my god these people
02:47:52 people in front of me helping or whatever including in my flat and so on were actually
02:48:00 actually actually policeman um and of course you know these policemen involved would indeed have assisted in the things we were doing which
02:48:16 were doing which if what we were doing was illegal or dangerous then of course it must be questionable as to the police's role um i do remember specifically um
02:48:30 specifically um infiltrators in the huntley street squad they were called nigel and mary and we suspected
02:48:34 suspected these people were police agents or something
02:48:35 something and indeed at the eviction because it was an eviction in the case of huntley street
02:48:43 street there was rehousing in the end as well but this nigel and mary were police agents because in the subsequent court case with some of us were assessed were arrested he's curious there's not a report about this in these documents
02:48:54 this in these documents i asked in court to michael ellis harris the undersheriff of london who were nigel and mary
02:49:05 who were nigel and mary and he said they worked for me and the whole
02:49:06 whole court it was the biggest court in marlinville magistrates court went totally silent and the magistrate went berserk he said you mean to tell me that you had
02:49:17 you mean to tell me that you had police agents working for you but helping the squatters go around london collecting corrugated iron and building barricades against the law and the magistrate was very angry
02:49:31 and the magistrate was very angry uh but it seems to me now that since you haven't mentioned this nigel and mary perhaps they were working directly for the
02:49:37 the undersheriff of london not for the police and not part of um special branch i i don't know but i think that's something which so um
02:49:52 so domiting might want to look into but there was other things going on uh involving other branches of of the state
02:49:58 state not just special branch thank you very much mr corbin thank you
02:50:15 mr corbin the um remit that i have yes occupies my time and that of the uh inquiry team without extending it any further
02:50:20 further i guess that's a fair comment it's just that i'm
02:50:21 that i'm a bit fascinated that you see my main activity then was you know loads of stuff stuff in squatting but they concentrated all these things about irish issues and so on when
02:50:36 irish issues and so on when uh there was a lot going on squatting including
02:50:40 including infiltration so who were nigel and mary apart from being linked with the underserved from okay you can't extend the inquiry i don't know but it's it's uh it's an issue anyway thank you um
02:50:55 it's an issue anyway thank you um one of the things i'm going to ask you to do is to wait for a quarter of an hour
02:50:58 hour uh at the end of every witness's um evidence um time is allowed for call participants to propose questions to yes harry and if you wouldn't mind coming back in a quarter of an hour
02:51:09 quarter of an hour i'd be grateful okay thank you thank you
02:51:20 good afternoon everyone we will now take a break may i remind those in the virtual hearing room to remember to join your breakout rooms please the time is 12 30 p.m so we shall resume at 12 45 pm thank you
03:06:23 to continue proceedings chairman thank you
03:06:26 you mr warner i understand there is one question that you are going to ask
03:06:33 mr corbyn at this stage yes sir mr corbin
03:06:33 corbin um can you hear me all right
03:06:42 mr corbin i think you might be on mute
03:06:51 got it right um mr corbin um i've just got one uh uh follow-up question um um you told us um earlier this morning um that the img uh did try to support other groups without
03:07:06 did try to support other groups without controlling them and you went on to say that um some other uh groups revolutionary groups did join uh join others in attempts to try and control them
03:07:18 and control them yes drawing a distinction between the img and these other groups yeah can you help us please um can you remember what other groups used to do that
03:07:28 that well the impression i had and i think it was accurate from my memory is that the is international socialists were
03:07:39 normally very intent on controlling whatever
03:07:42 whatever they were doing so they would have things which we would describe or i would describe as fronts so you know you would have some campaign or other called something but really it was just
03:07:56 just being controlled completely by the is uh the img did i suppose well yeah the rmg would would have a a less controlling
03:08:07 would have a a less controlling way of doing things although of course in all these groups there are people who would be
03:08:14 would be intent on control because it's easier to manage possibly but you see it's not necessarily more effective you know i think the important thing is to get more participation and i think that was generally the img view
03:08:32 that was generally the img view is it just the is that you were thinking of or any any other groups or was it their member um
03:08:37 well there would be other groups like amethyst groups who would really just be very self-contained and wouldn't want anybody uh interfering with them if you like um and would probably
03:08:51 and would probably they might indeed set up campaigns or front campaigns uh but they're never in indeed be totally in charge of them but the anarchist groups to be fair would also just turn up at meetings and join into anything
03:09:04 join into anything so there wouldn't be a consistent pattern with them thank you mr corbett and that's the question i have for you okay thank you that concludes your evidence now now i thank you for um
03:09:15 now now i thank you for um bringing in sir excuse me um may i ask for permission to ask a few questions i thought i i had an automatic right um given i represented
03:09:27 represented you wish to ask questions in re-examination if i may i i apologize i had overlooked that fact no it's not a problem okay um i'll i'll i'll just use a a small
03:09:41 small part of my allotted time if i may um mr coleman just a few matters looking looking back at um at over 50 years of activism yeah
03:09:52 over 50 years of activism yeah have you in your opinion have ever engaged in any political activity that you consider was subversive in that it threatened the safety or well-being of the state
03:10:03 of the state and was intended intended to undermine or overthrow parliamentary democracy by political industrial or violent means uh no i haven't neither then nor since then nor
03:10:13 then nor nor now i mean obviously things happened which could be misinterpreted in those bank but you see now that's the answer to that is no
03:10:27 answer to that is no now amongst the intelligence reports that have been disclosed to you there are a number that indicate that a particular sds officer who uses the nominal hn
03:10:41 sds officer who uses the nominal hn 338 an officer who's no longer alive um attended at least three small political meetings at your home in 1972. well i want to know who this hm338 was yes i understand i mean
03:10:54 yes i understand i mean the position is that um we don't know his
03:11:00 his his cover name and um you haven't been shown a photograph of this particular officer
03:11:03 officer from the 1970s and my question is this i mean if you were given his cover name and if you were given a photograph of him from the early 1970s might that assist you in remembering more about this particular officer
03:11:18 more about this particular officer and the nature of his spying on you oh it certainly would he certainly would i mean you know
03:11:27 seeing a face brings forth memories you see i remember colin clark i'm slightly puzzled that i didn't recognize his photo but on the other hand
03:11:35 hand you know photos and memories can be confusing but i don't remember this colin clark who was a you know
03:11:42 know friendly sort of guy i remember a paul piercel
03:11:46 piercel being active in imperial college and also sometimes coming to my flat could he be hn 338 i i don't know i don't know thank you could i um
03:11:58 i don't know thank you could i um please ask for the following document to be put on the screen ucpi five zeros one zero eight five zero and sir i think it's a tab
03:12:11 five zero and sir i think it's a tab 34 of your file but mr corbin you'll get it on the screen okay
03:12:19 um you can see from the top that it's a special branch document and if you look at the first three lines it reads as follows the following has been received from a reliable source
03:12:30 reliable source and is based on 12 months acquaintance with the squatting field in london and you can see it's daily
03:12:35 daily 12th of august 1976. okay and um unless i'm missing it we don't know the the author of this
03:12:50 we don't know the the author of this particular document it doesn't appear either by number or by name anywhere um have you had the opportunity mr corbin to re-read this document i have yes
03:12:59 yes i have um in your opinion does does it accurately portray the squatting movement in london in 1976 well partly
03:13:12 well partly but in in its you know general view i would say no you see
03:13:20 the squatting movement then was hugely diverse
03:13:23 diverse and this document although it's got you know
03:13:26 know geographical and organizational things correct
03:13:31 correct like people were meeting at saint paul's road and campaigning against criminal trespass law those things are correct but it seems to have in it quite a lot of political interpretation um which i think
03:13:47 um which i think i don't know if they're trying to please someone who this report was was written for um [Music]
03:13:55 [Music] it's it sort of implies things were a lot more
03:13:59 lot more anarchistic than they were although amethysts were important and suggest that squatting appeared to be more of a political thing than it was although squatters became political
03:14:10 political uh you know people
03:14:16 people squatted through desperation that's what happened in oakland avenue they were desperate people you um i'm just slashing through this thing in front of me in the printed version because it's you see this thing here yes there's one he says on page whatever
03:14:27 he says on page whatever page two he says um this is a numbered paragraph he said the truth is that over 80 percent
03:14:39 that over 80 percent mrs squatters do not want cancer housing because it would require that they meet certain obligations
03:14:46 you see that's just not true i mean in elgin avenue everybody who was offered housing took it
03:14:55 it nobody turned it down and it did involve obligations obviously you're paying a license fee and eventually when people were rehoused it was it was a rent now there were anarchists in that movement who said we shouldn't accept
03:15:06 movement who said we shouldn't accept any rehousing we should squat on forever because that's like a a new future and i just said look
03:15:17 just said look that's ridiculous people have come here for housing and that's what they want and
03:15:20 and if it means paying rent then they'll pay rent and they'll want to and that's exactly what happened so see this document is written i don't know from the point of view of somebody who was anarchistic
03:15:32 somebody who was anarchistic and wanted to believe certain things uh see we don't know who wrote this was it uh a sort of anarchistic person who
03:15:41 who sent it in hoping to convince the police or something i i don't know what is the origin of this document but i would say as it is it's a oversimplification of the
03:15:53 oversimplification of the the reality and i've got another mark here
03:15:59 here oh yes about the police it says on page uh well oh the bottom of the page you know there's all the same numbers here it says the general attitude towards the police is one of complete
03:16:14 is one of complete non-cooperation well that isn't true either i mean the attitude towards the police were just a practical matter i mean it's as most people's attitude towards the policies
03:16:22 policies and indeed in elgin avenue um we didn't seek cooperation with the police but when we just wanted when we needed to
03:16:34 when we just wanted when we needed to discuss things although they wanted to discuss with us we did and i remember a specific case very illustrative of we there was somebody who had been making trouble in the street
03:16:46 trouble in the street you know living in there and harassing women and serious serious stuff so we told him we had a street meeting and told this guy he had to go
03:16:53 to go and we removed him from the squat we told him somewhere else he could go and live but he wasn't going to be allowed in ogan avenue anymore thank you
03:17:04 you but the police turned up when there was this they could hear arguments in the street because the police station wasn't far away
03:17:08 far away um and the police said to me they said well okay he stays on that side of the road and you people stay on your side of the road so they actually
03:17:25 road so they actually endorsed what what we had done mr corbyn can i ask you a follow-on question from this which is which is this i mean you mentioned
03:17:26 mentioned when you were answering questions earlier that you were surprised that given um squatting actors activism was such a major part of your
03:17:37 such a major part of your political activity in the 1970s that there are
03:17:42 there are um so few intelligence reports disclosed to you
03:17:44 to you that actually deal with your squatting activism
03:17:47 activism why is that why are you surprised about that
03:17:52 that well given that they put so much effort into following my detailed activity in irish or whatever
03:18:05 whatever and when i moved from arundel street to uh elgin avenue i'm surprised there wasn't
03:18:09 wasn't looking back logically should have been police who would move into to the squad uh because they could completely spy on me easily that way by being squatting in elgin avenue and if they had done that they would have produced a report
03:18:23 have produced a report but we don't see any reports from from them uh
03:18:27 them uh so far as as i can see which is uh puzzling because um in the mind of uh the special brand surely uh
03:18:34 surely uh our squatting activity was well i don't know they might think that i think me going to a troops out
03:18:45 i think me going to a troops out movement meeting was dangerous but surely uh
03:18:46 surely uh my squatting activity would be equally dangerous if a troops out movement thing is
03:18:53 is deemed dangerous so i i don't know why they weren't there it's or perhaps they were and we haven't had any reports of it and perhaps that john would like to look into that i mean
03:19:04 to look into that i mean do they have reports which are no use or that she
03:19:08 that she put us in put me into an embarrassingly good light i mean i i just don't know i'm i'm mesmerized uh yeah mr corbin finally finally this um
03:19:17 um is there anything else that you would wish to say to the chair of the inquiry to uh assist him in his search for the truth as far as the police spying on you is concerned
03:19:33 police spying on you is concerned uh yes if we want more search for the truth i would say well we should ask them point blank did you have any police agency in elgin avenue
03:19:44 police agency in elgin avenue um this nigel and mary who turned up in hunty street who were they actually working for were they in fact sub-employees of the sheriff of london or was it a
03:19:55 or was it a a another special branch link which they don't want to tell us about
03:20:06 don't want to tell us about certainly those things also what was the aim of the special branch in all this activity because you know i've been surveilled for a decade i i mean for what i mean they haven't accused me of doing anything there
03:20:17 anything there dangerous in in in in the sense of these reports i would have thought that there's better use frankly of at least time than
03:20:25 time than this this sort of thing thank you mr corbin that's all i ask sir i hope i've um i hope i've used my 10 minutes and no more
03:20:38 minutes and no more you have indeed done thank you mr corwin can i say two things to you yes of course thank you very much for illuminating the campaigns groups and activities in which you were involved in the late 60s and 70s
03:20:50 the late 60s and 70s it is refreshing to hear an account by someone who participated as widely as you did oh good well i'm glad you found it useful
03:20:58 it useful and it paints a side of the picture that i don't get from the documents and always from the former undercover officers and their manager's evidence um you say
03:21:11 um you say in response to the last question mr mennon
03:21:20 mennon uh for what reason were you surveilled i'm looking not so much surveillance overall but at the infiltration of groups
03:21:24 groups yes that you participated by undercover officers
03:21:28 officers that is one of the very basic questions that i'm going to attempt to answer good your honor thank you i mean it was well quite exciting to be able to read a sort
03:21:42 sort of diary from certain eyes of what i was doing and i'm astounded that i remembered so much but you know that the whole purpose of it needs clarification absolutely and uh i wish you every success in getting clarification so thank you for that your evidence is
03:21:56 so thank you for that your evidence is now over and mr fernandez will announce the closure of uh this morning's session uh i intend that we should resume at a five past two because we've overrun slightly
03:22:10 thank you thank you we will now take a break for lunch may i remind those in the virtual hearing room to please remember to join your breakout rooms the time is 105 pm so we shall resume at 205 pm
03:22:20 205 pm thank you
03:24:54 you