VARI-PAGE 1 • VARIANT • VOLUME 2 NUMBER 8 • SUMMER 1999 The Wilson plots Robin Ramsay The ‘Wilson plots’ is a portmanteau term for a col- get summarised as ‘MI5 plots against Wilson’ is Courtiour (who became mockingly titled lection of fragments of knowledge about intelli- due to the way the information about these areas ‘Pencourt’) gave them the little he had and hoped gence operations against the Labour governments emerged in 1986-88, through former Army for the best. But without any decent leads into the of Harold Wilson and a great many other people Information Officer, Colin Wallace, and the former MI5 material, Pencourt stumbled —or were led: it and organisations. ‘The Wilson plots’ are about a MI5 officer, Peter Wright. They both talked about isn’t clear which —into the story being run by good deal more than Harold Wilson and his gov- MI5 as the source of plotting against Wilson BOSS of Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe and his ernments. (though Wallace’s allegations were much wider brief affair with Norman Scott —not the story of The British state —and the secret state —had than that) and for much of the left-liberal media MI5’s campaign against Wilson. There was a brief never trusted the British left and had always and politicians in this country this fitted straight flurry of interest by the media, notably by the worked to undermine it. The Attlee government into their vague understanding of the intelligence Observer which had paid a lot of money for the came out of the war-time coalition and was consid- services and British domestic history which told serialisation rights to the Pencourt book, but noth- ered mostly safe and reliable by the state: and by them that the bad guys were MI5. By the time we ing happened and the story disappeared. Wilson safe and reliable I mean it did not seek to chal- had educated ourselves sufficiently to understand tried to get his successor James Callaghan to do lenge either the power of the state nor the what Wallace and Wright were saying, the percep- something but Callaghan declined. assumptions about the importance of finance capi- tion —the false perception —that the story was The story disappeared for two reasons. The only tal, the British empire and Britain’s role as world just MI5 plotting against the Labour government journalists or politicians in the late 1970s who power which underpinned it. had been established. knew anything about the secret state were cur- Harold Wilson, a most conservative man, made rently or formerly employed by the secret state or one large mistake while a young man as far as the The Pencourt Investigation were mouthpieces for it. There was no investiga- state was concerned: he was not sufficiently anti- tive journalism in 1978 in the UK worth mention- It is largely now forgotten that the first attempt to Soviet. During the 1940s and 50s, while many of ing; there were no former British intelligence get ‘the Wilson plots’ story going was made by his Labour colleagues were accepting freebies officers to show journalists the way; there were no Wilson himself. from the Americans and going to the United whistle-blowers, no renegades. There were no Wilson was aware of the various attempts to States for nice holidays, Wilson was travelling east courses being taught in universities. There were get the media to run smear stories about him and fixing trade deals with the Soviet Union. He was almost no books to read. In 1978 the British secret his circle, and aware of the stream of burglaries perceived by the secret state —by some sections state was, really was, still secret. afflicting himself, his personal staff and other of the secret state, notably but not exclusively, sec- After the failure of the Pencourt investigation Labour Party figures in the 1974-76 period. But he tions of MI5 —to be someone who, in the words of nothing happened for five years. Harold Wilson chose to do nothing in public while he was in the General Sir Walter Walker, ‘digs with the became a Lord, presided over a long inquiry into office. In private he tried to get the Cabinet wrong foot’. the City of London which was consigned to the Secretary, Sir John Hunt, to do something, though In short,Wilson was perceived by some to be a recycle bin as soon as it was published, and duly quite what Hunt did is still unknown. dangerous lefty and his arrival as leader of the developed Alzheimers’ as he suspected he would. It seems clear now that Wilson did nothing Labour Party was thought by some of the profes- His personal assistant for 30 years, Marcia publicly for four reasons. The first was that he did- sionally paranoid Cold Warriors in the British and Williams, became Lady Faulkender and has said n’t have anything substantial to goon —merely American secret states to be deeply suspicious. nothing of consequence since. Barry Penrose and suspicions and a lot of little whispy bits and pieces Wilson had been to the Soviet Union many times: Roger Courtiour made a lot of money. Penrose was of rumours and tip-offs. The second reason for his was he a KGB agent, they wondered? Had he been last seen working for the Express, telling lies for inaction was his distrust of MI5. Had Wilson entrapped and blackmailed? the British state about Northern Ireland. instructed Whitehall to do an inquiry, it would Asking that question was enough for MI5 to Courtiour is in the BBC somewhere. have turned to MI5; and it was MI5 that Wilson begin obsessively investigating Wilson and his col- and his personal secretary, Marcia Williams, sus- leagues and friends. Nothing was found. But to the pected of being at the root of their troubles. The Colin Wallace & Peter Wright professional paranoids, nothing found simply sug- third reason Wilson did nothing while in office By 1979 the extraordinary events of the 1974-76 gested it was better hidden than they first was his knowledge in 1974 when he won the elec- period —events which included The Times serious- thought. And so they carried on. Meanwhile, the tion, that he would only serve two more years and ly discussing the right conditions for a military left in Britain was on the rise: trade unions got quit. Wilson, we now know, was afraid of coup in the UK, and a considerable chunk of the more powerful. The professional paranoids, noting Alzheimers’ disease: it had afflicted his father and British establishment wondering if the Prime the influence of the Communist Party of Great he told his inner circle in 1974 that he was going Minister was a KGB agent —had just slipped by, Britain in some trade unions, began to see the to resign in 1976 when he was 60. In 1975/6 ensur- unexamined. In came Mrs Thatcher with her shift left-wards in the UK in the sixties and early ing a smooth hand-over of power to his successor GCSE understanding of economics and proceeded 1970s as somehow under Soviet control. In 1974 —and Labour was a minority government, don’t to wreck the British economy, creating 2 million Conservative Prime Minister Heath had his fateful forget —was a much greater priority than finding unemployed in 18 months, and the entire story — show-down with the miners union —and lost — out who was behind the burglaries of his offices or group of stories we know as the Wilson plots — and the Tory right and their friends in the secret and the rumours about him. Wilson was a loyal simply ceased to be of interest to all but a handful state began a series of operations to prevent what member of the Labour Party to whom he owed of people. they believed —or pretended to believe —was an everything. He didn’t want to make bad publicity One of that handful was Colin Wallace, who in imminent left revolution in Britain. Some of these for the party —and his successor. And the fourth 1980 began a ten year sentence for a manslaugh- operations were done by the secret state; some by reason Wilson did nothing was his memory of the ter he didn’t commit. Wallace was interested in people close to but not in the secret state. Bits of previous time he had tried. In his first term in the Wilson plots story because he had not only the CIA also shared this view and got involved. office, encouraged by George Wigg MP, he had been a minor participant in the plots, and had The South African intelligence service (BOSS) was tried taking on the Whitehall security establish- knowledge of other areas of secret activities, he running parallel operations against Labour and ment in the so-called D-notice Affair —and had Liberal politicians it perceived as South Africa’s got his fingers badly burned. enemies, notably the Liberal leader Jeremy As far as we know Wilson had very little real, Thorpe and the then leader of the Young Liberals, concrete information about what was going on in now the Labour MP, Peter Hain. It is worth noting 1976 when he retired. He knew that he and his cir- here that similar operations were being run in this cle were being repeatedly burgled. He had period against mild, reformist, leftish parties in watched the campaign being run against Jeremy New Zealand, Australia, Germany, in Canada Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party, by BOSS, against the Quebec separatists, and, most famous- and that is why he made his first public remarks ly, in Chile.