The Enemy within: MI5, Maxwell and the Scargill Affair Book

Margaret Thatcher branded the leaders of the 1984-5 miners' strike as "the enemy within" - a furtive political clique out to undermine democracy and liberty. This book reveals the irony of Thatcher's accusation. For an "enemy within" was at work inside the National Union of Mineworkers. But it was not a force hell-bent on subversion of the British state. Quite the opposite - it was the secret service of the British state itself. This book follows the war waged by successive Tory governments against Britain's miners. It draws together the threads of a story which travels from Sheffield and London, to Moscow, Tripoli and Dublin, recounting the astonishing lengths to which the intelligence services were prepared to go in their most ambitious counter-subversion operation ever mounted. Drawing on access to sources and informants from all sides, the author exposes spying and dirty tricks against the NUM on an epic scale. Naming names and providing a wealth of never-before-published detail, Suemas Milne shows how MI5 was involved in a series of elaborate smears against Arthur Scargill and his closest associates, which drew in Labour politicians, Conservative minister and the media empire of Robert Maxwell. Running operations against the NUM was the woman who now presents the "new face" of MI5 - Stella Rimington.Read More