Inside the Economic League

“Inside the Economic League” draws on newly available newspaper reports and published historical research to fill in previous gaps in is the story of the League’s organisational development. It reveals that the time of the General Strike until its ignominious demise in 1993, the Economic League was primarily an intelligence operation designed to gather covert human intelligence on ordinary citizens. But it did this on a scale the British State itself could not do; and could not afford to be seen doing. It used that intelligence to disrupt trades union organisation at its grass roots. Clement Attlee and the Labour Government could not ignore that covert campaign. It became their government policy to ensure that Britain’s secret state supported it. Hughes publishes for the very first time, page-by-page analysis of 1200 pages of the two of the League’s registers of blacklisted individuals. They contain neary30,000’ Tony Blair’s government promised to take action to end blacklisting and delivered important legislation against it. It did not work. As Angela Rayner and Kier Starmer make that promise again, following successful group actions against blacklisting construction companies “Inside the League” explains why the previous legislation failed and what might be done to prevent mistakes being made again.