Oliver Brown
Agents Provocateurs
Mr Harry Ewing, Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, has accused the SNP of ineptitude because some of its prominent members have suspected the authorities of using people as agents provocateurs in order to discredit Scottish Nationalism. I know of six such criminals and have met three of them. I published the names of three in a pamphlet of which thousands were sold and of which copies were sent to the legal authorities and to the "prostitutes of the police" (as I called those people) along with an invitation to sue for libel.
My legal adviser told me that the publication was libellous but that the people accused would probably not take action because of the inevitable exposure. But he added that I must not mention by name any legal authority involved, "otherwise that legal authority would he compelled to crush me".
Three of Scotland's young people were given the idea of blowing up St Andrew's House and the necessary equipment was provided, along with a driver, by the upholders of law and order; one of whom was decorated with the BEM for his part. The main indictment — that of conspiracy —by the Edinburgh jury, but the young men were sentenced to one year's imprisonment for being in unlawful possession of arms.
My pamphlet was entitled "England's Spies and Agents Provocateurs", and it related how a certain agent induced three young Nationalists to raid Craigengaun Quarry, Milngavie, and to steal explosives. A police car was there waiting for them.
Another attempt was made to burn down Maryhill Employment Exchange. Again the building was surrounded by police, and the Nationalists were alarmed. The agent provocateur told them that he had left a bottle of paraffin with his fingerprints on the roof. When the young fools were coming down they were seized and one of them received a blow on the head from a policeman's baton.
The defending solicitor had been in the CID, and he recognised the agent provocateur as a police tout. This creature was put in the witness box and his solicitor "asked the Sheriff to inform him that he need not answer any questions that might incriminate himself".
"A dozen witnesses could have been produred in court to brand him as a police informer but it was discovered that the operation of the Official Secrets Act shut the mouths of these witnesses."
The evidence against the accused was damning but the Sheriff took an unusual and courageous line.
He said: "In the first place the police were fully informed beforehand of what was going to take place. It is beyond doubt that the person who informed them was within the inner circle of those who were discussing such a project." The case was dismissed.
An Irishman once said to me. "We all knew who was the British agent; he was the fellow who got the worst beating up by the British police.
The Secret Service receives funds for which no account is ever given. No Government could afford to even know of the dirty work it does. It is safer not even to inquire.
The day after the publication of this pamphlet I had to sit at the telephone answering questions from excited Pressmen who thought it the greatest story of their experience. The next day there was not a mention in any paper. You can believe you are living in a free society only if you have nothing to say.
Since then, however, I have heard no account of a similar incident. I suspect that this exposure was sufficient warning to the British that they were playing a dangerous game here, however successful it may have been in Belfast.
Copies of this pamphlet have been sent to the Glasgow Herald on request and to Mr Harry Ewing without his request. I have demanded from this MP a public apology to the SNP for his ineptitude.
No reply from Mr H. Ewing, Under Secretary for State; yet both courtesy and honesty demanded some acknowledgment of my pamphlet proving that the British are capable of using their hired criminals against us.
Both in the pulpit and in the Scottish Office, we find cowards who can attack us only behind our backs. (He is now LORD EWING!) - Ed.)