Fascist mole quits ASDA

Andy Newman

Joe Finnon, one of the two BNP members who infiltrated the SWP for a year, has left the employment of ASDA under a cloud.

He worked at Hulme ASDA (one bit of the Walmart Empire that prides itself on multicultural workforce) and BNP leaflets had recently been appearing on the tills. It seems that the local SWP was getting up a letter exposing him, but staff at ASDA already knew about Joe's recent spying activities. Unfortunately management allowed him to resign rather than sack him.

Interestingly the two fascist infiltrators, Joe Finnon and Diane Stoker share a flat with a third student, who studies Medicine. It is hard to believe that Joe and Diane could keep up the charade at home in private as well as in public for a year. Then again, that third person may just not be political, but I think the Mancs left need to watch the third person slightly.

Manchester Unite Against Fascism belatedly issued a statement on the infiltration in the names of Colin Barker (chair) and Dick Withecombe (secretary). However this was sent out only some days after the information was already being circulated around the Manchester left. Unfortunately the UAF statement was more concerned with putting a favourable political spin on the events than soberly discussing the problem.

What Manchester SWP needs to do (from a security perspective) is get together for a brainstorming session, and come up with a list of potential threats based upon BNP knowledge of SWP and the wider left. The rules of brainstorming are that all ideas are treated equally seriously and there is no hierarchy.

The next step is to go down the list and consider each risk in turn to evaluate two things, how likely it is and how bad the consequences would be.

Then (concentrating most on the risks that are both likely and bad) see what mitigating measures could be taken. A good example, is if the fascists know that the SWP comrades currently do an early morning workplace sale on a Friday (where sellers might be vulnerable to attack), just move it to Thursday.