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.)