The links between British police, Special Branch, MI5, the Conservative Party and blacklisting organisations go back to the post-World War 1 years. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the Economic League ran most of the blacklisting activities throughout the UK. Their role, on their demise, was taken over by the Consulting Association. The links between the CA (or their predecessor) and the police were widely known. But thanks to recent investigative work by trade unionists (together with some supplementary information from UndercoverInfo) the names of two senior police officers who had or have links to blacklisting can be revealed.

A Select Committee investigation found that representatives from the undercover police unit known as the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU) attended and gave presentations to meetings of the Consulting Association, the blacklisting organisation. In 2013 the head of the covert blacklisting organisation, which was financed and controlled by major construction companies, was prosecuted for holding illegal files on construction workers. Superintendent Steve Pearl, who ran NECTU, is now a director of Agenda Security Services, which provides employment vetting services – i.e. blacklisting in all but name.

Agenda Security Services (ASS) boast its staff includes “teams of ex-police, ex-military, desktop researchers and security analysts” ASS also states that it works with Government Institutions, global corporations and small to medium sized businesses. One of its main services is employee screening. ASS “combine high tech and secure systems with well trained and customer focused researchers and analysts…” Ironically this program is named as ISIS: Information Security Investigation System. Checks include identity, address, internet mining search (i.e. check individual via search engines), employment history, gaps in employment and credit references. ASS explains that it intelligence can be gathered on “threats to the organisation, animal rights, extremists, competitors and counterfeiters to name but a few.” ASS uses an interactive software system called Guardian, which it uses to to check over a billion web pages on behalf of clients.

Steve Pearl’s former boss, Assistant Chief Constable Anton Setchell, who was the senior police officer in charge of the UK police domestic extremism machinery between 2004 and 2010, is now head of global security at Laing O’Rourke – one of the construction companies that subscribed to the Consulting Association.

Note… Blacklisting is the illegal practice of criminalising political dissent and trade union activism to ensure victims remain unemployed and impoverished. Today it is as widespread as ever, with details of victims circulated within employer networks and by government information systems (e.g. GCHQ).