How the British Intelligence Network of Astroturfed Muslim Civil Society Groups Is Kept Secret and Deniable

 

The Research, Information and Communications Unit and Covert Propaganda

The British Government has, since 2011, been in the business of developing a vast network of deniable front groups in the Muslim community. Leaked document passed to Mintpress show in extraordinary detail how this network was set up, by whom, and the precise contractual arrangements between a British intelligence agency created to institute four levels of arms length relations in order that the end ‘product’ be deniable. This is to ensure, in other words, as one of the leaked documents says: “Campaign products are never directly attributed to RICU”.

Creating a New British Intelligence Agency

In 2007, Charles Farr, the then-head of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT) at the Home Office, set up a strategic communications unit: the Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU). Although RICU is located within the Home Office, it is also funded by and answerable to the Foreign Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government (which has gone through several name changes since then). The OSCT is, as the Intelligence and Select Committee notes, one of the “seven Agencies and Departments which form the UK Intelligence Community”. RICU, therefore, is part of the intelligence community and not simply a ‘communications’ unit.

RICU

On the launch of RICU, The Sunday Times reported that “officials deny this is in any way a propaganda department, although one conceded: ‘It does sound horribly cold war’”. Former Guardian journalist Ian Cobain claims that it was modelled on the Information Research Department, an anti-Communist propaganda unit set by the Clement Attlee’s Labour government in 1948 in such secrecy that the cabinet was lied to about its true role by its founder Christopher Mayhew. IRD was dissolved in 1977 by then Foreign Secretary David Owen. Its history is given in Paul Lashmar and James Oliver’s essential 1998 book Britain's Secret Propaganda War.

The Information Research Department

The Information Research Department (IRD) produced a full range of off-the-record and covert briefing material. This data could be true, but it always pushed a particular line and often included lies. The mode of delivery was usually covert, meaning that the true source of the material was not intended to be divulged. Its activities in Northern Ireland are relatively widely known where forgeries and attacks on democratic politicians as well as illegal opposition groups were widespread, as was disclosed in Paul Foot’s classic 1989 book Who Framed Colin Wallace?

The IRD also engaged in the wide-ranging production of fake news and forged documents. Some of these have only come to light in the recent past.  (more...)

How the British Intelligence Network of Astroturfed Muslim Civil Society Groups Is Kept Secret and Deniable