The Home Office has launched a public consultation into the future of the Undercover Policing Inquiry — without consulting survivors. We believe this is a deliberate move to scrap or severely limit the Inquiry’s scope before it reaches more recent abuses by undercover police.
We are calling on everyone to boycott the official consultation and message the Home Office directly. Use the campaign action page to put your message straight to officials. Let them know you support our call for the Inquiry to complete its work in full.
Launched in 2015 to investigate spying on political activists and justice campaigners, the Inquiry has just finished open hearings into the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which operated from 1968 to 2008. A final report is due in 2027. But another unit has yet to be examined: the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), covering undercover policing in social movements from 1999 to 2011. Survivors of abuse by this unit have waited since 2015 for answers, only to have the Home Office threaten the Inquiry just as their turn was due. This is not justice.
So far, the Inquiry has heard shocking evidence about officers who deceived women into intimate relationships; police who stole the identities of dead children for undercover personas; miscarriages of justice; officers acting as agent provocateurs; spying on trade unionists, elected politicians, justice campaigners and grieving families; collusion with companies that blacklisted workers; and a unit prepared to break the law and spend vast sums of public money to protect itself.
This isn’t just historical. What the Inquiry has evidenced about the SDS and Special Branch has direct bearing on how protest and dissent are policed today. The deployments still to be investigated — under Tranches 4 and 5 — must be heard in full.
We are calling for:
- The Home Office to withdraw this consultation and not bow to those seeking to shut the Inquiry down;
- Full funding to complete the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference, including Tranches 4 and 5 and Module 3;
- An expert panel and new Chair to be urgently appointed;
- Prompt, orderly disclosure of evidence to Core Participants following a clear process that prevents deliberate delays by the state & ensures openness.
Send a message to the Home Office →
