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.
September 2004