Let’s say, for example, the government wished to launch an illegal and unpopular war.

The State is well aware that this will lead to protests, the possibility of disruption and even violence directed at the police or Governmental/Military institutions. At it’s worst the Government of the day may be ousted or the military classes may mutiny. All Governments live in fear of the mob.

This is where the SWP steps in. First a massive intelligence gathering operation is carried out. This may take the form of a petition designed to collect the names and addresses of anyone who may become involved in subversion. The support of a National Newspaper is vital to this and will be encouraged through the usual channels.

The Newspaper editor can later be dismissed at the State’s leisure.

A mass demonstration will be called. Utilising a front name, for example, the No To War Coalition (NTWC) the SWP will then begin to hold public meetings and start to brand the event with their chosen logo. Note the use of the word ‘coalition’, we will refer to this tactic later.

The leadership of the SWP will dominate the group which will operate to a strict hierarchy. Public meetings will not provide an outlet for the public to speak or discuss tactics, instead they will be dominated by rousing political speeches from agents trained in presentation skills.

At any time the SWP operate a number of smaller ‘front’ organisations and these groups, along with those groups considered politically weak will form the basis of the ‘coalition’. This is done to offer the illusion of coalition building when in fact it will be comprised of the membership of the SWP and run by agents working directly for the Security Services.

Trusted SWP members will be dispatched around the country, to Universities and Trade Unions, to establish regional branches of the No To War Coalition. The members of these groups will be genuine and may not even realise the involvement of the SWP.

Groups which are deemed a possible threat to the state will, as much as is possible, be excluded from all meetings.

A date will be called to take action, this will immediately be distributed to national newspapers. If another group has already called a demonstration then the SWP will do one of two things. If the rival event seems small and manageable they will call their event at the same time and place and seek to swamp it.

If the rival event looks likely to have a high turnout they will call their event as close as possible to it in the hope that people will likely only attend one event - theirs. With the resources of the State to draw on it is not difficult to effectively ‘out promote’ other events.

A Press Office will be established. It is vital that at early as possible the SWP will provide the only voice of dissent in the national media. This is not difficult as most journalists are rather lazy and will happily print the contents of a Press Release from those whom they have been encouraged to believe are the leaders of the opposition to the war.

Salt Without Pepper

So far so good. There is still however the danger that the demonstration will act spontaneously and violence towards the police and property will ensue. Whilst at times this can be useful to the State at the beginnings of a covertly controlled mass movement this must not be allowed to happen. The tone for proceeding activity must be set early.

Therefore a number of steps must be taken. It is preferable that protesters are led to an area where damage limitation can be maintained. Hyde Park is a good example, with little property to damage and a lack of makeshift weapons which could be used against the police. Trafalgar Square is another popular choice as it has been specifically designed as an area in which people can be easily contained.

The march will start somewhere around Parliament. Trouble rarely flares at the beginning of such events and this tactic allows people to feel they have made their point to the Government. The irony of thousands of people marching away from the centre of State power is not lost on some in the intelligence services.

The event’s organisers (the SWP) will have worked very closely with the police to ensure that the route minimises any chance of violence and damage to property. Heavy policing on the day will be supported by march stewards who will be members of the SWP. These people will not be aware of the true agenda of the organisation and will have been encouraged to think that a riot or even disruption in the form of, for example, a sit down protest will in some way damage the ’cause’.

Again the irony that these unpaid volunteers believe themselves to be acting against the State whilst actually working with the State to prevent any genuine threat is not lost on some.

In the rare event that trouble does flare then the SWP leadership will strongly condemn those responsible and claim that the event was hijacked by anarchists intent on violence. It must never be allowed to be seen that violent resistance or direct action happened spontaneously or as a response to police aggression.

The SWP instructs it’s members that taking direct action is ‘elitist’ and the way to generate change is to lobby MP’s and stand in elections, a far cry from their faux Trotskyite agenda.

Back to the demonstration, thousands of placards will have been produced which will be distributed on the day by SWP activists. These will be branded with the No To War Coalition’s logo, colours and name, further strengthening their position in the media as the leaders of anti-war sentiment.

At the end of the march a rally will be held. This will involve speeches from SWP leaders, trusted media commentators and possibly even members of the Government who play the role of mavericks. Further actions up to and including civil disobedience will be threatened if the war goes ahead. At all times it is key that the speeches implore the Government not to act (or act depending on the issue at hand). It is vital that people are not encouraged to take matters into their own hands. Remember the SWP exist not just to manufacture consent for this war, but to manufacture obedience in general, this will be discussed later in the piece.

Many speeches will be solely self-congratulary, however some will lay the groundwork for future strategy. The political leadership of the country under military attack will be lionised. Whether the Vietcong or Hamas, their political failings will be ignored, the message clearly being given that no matter what the circumstances any enemy of the government is the SWP’s friend. This is done to alienate from the anti-war movement all but the most politically naive.

After the event the day will be hailed as a great success, attendance figures will be hugely exaggerated and the SWP leadership will announce the ‘beginning of a new mass movement’.

The war will then go ahead as planned.

The Matador’s Cape

The first phase is now complete. The vast majority of the attendees at the first demonstration will be the liberal middle classes who may never have attended a political event before. They will be outraged that they were ignored, so angry in fact that they will vow never to be involved in politics again. This is known as the ’strop effect’ by the intelligence community.

However some people will alternatively vow to escatlate their activity until the State rolls over and stops the war. These people are recognised by the State to be potentially troublesome and therefore the SWP must move to the next stage of their operation.

Leaders of the SWP, masquerading as the leadership of the anti-war movement, will appear in the media condemning, in the strongest possible terms, the actions of the Government. It is time for personality politics to be employed.

The SWP will select a leader who will operate as the public face of the anti-war movement. An ideal candidate will be a maverick politician, charismatic yet vain. This individual can later be discredited, for example, by subjecting themselves to public humiliation on a reality television show. As a back up strategy it helps if the chosen figurehead is thoroughly corrupt, providing the possibility of leverage or even blackmail should it become necessary later.

A political party will be established with the purpose of fighting elections. The leadership of this party will be drawn from the higher ranks of the SWP and will also include trusted media commentators with already established relationships with the Security Services.

A relatively recent tactic is for this party to focus on one ethnic group, ideally associated with the regime under military attack. The person chosen to represent this ethnic group will not be of that particular ethnicity. This ultimately undermines the demands of this group and further strengthens the notion that people need leaders to tell them how to organise.

Another advantage of this strategy is to alienate and divide the wider working class. Whilst up until now the SWP’s activity has been focussed largely on the middle classes it is worthy of note that the one thing the State fears most is an uprising amongst the disenfranchised.

Though the SWP claim to be a Socialist Party they will ultimately focus their attention on liberal issues or focus on minorities within the working class. This effectively ensures the working class on mass remain voiceless and has the added benefit of alienating working class people from left wing and potentially revolutionary politics.

This article is concerned with the SWP being used in a single issue campaign to harness and then eliminate anti-government sentiment, in this case over a hypothetical war. It is though, important to stress that the activities of this clandestine operation never lose sight of the objective to ensure that as many groups as possible remain disempowered and unlikely to challenge the State.

With a string of puppet leaders in place the No To War Coalition will soon call another political event, stressing the success (despite it’s failure) of the first ‘mass mobilisation’.

Meanwhile another activity is being carried out behind the scenes. The SWP will identify established groups with similiar aims to the stated aims of the No To War Coalition. This may include groups campaigning against the arms trade or nuclear proliferation or other related issues.

The SWP will encourage it’s members to join these groups and the SWP leadership will ultimately wrestle control of these groups. The most commen tactic for this is to use mass entryism and then vote or lobby their own people into leadership positions.

The benefits of this are two-fold: firstly the aims and activities of the group will be watered down and ultimately rendered redundant and secondly it further adds to the illusion of diversity within the No To War Coalition. Whilst this has been going on a constant process of pruning within the coalition will be being carried out. No dissent will be tolerated and various dirty tricks may be employed to remove people viewed as troublesome.

The second event will not be as well attended as the first with the liberal masses left disillusioned and powerless. It will still be hailed as a great success. Another event will be called soon after. The format will remain the same, an A-B march with a rally at the end with the same speakers making the same speeches. The same pledges of civil disobedience will be made, but this activity will never materialise.

The media interest will slowly withdraw as the marches and demonstrations become less newsworthy. The initial anger generated by the war will become muted as it starts to become part of day to day life. Even major atrocities or the death of British servicemen will barely merit a mention except buried towards the back of the newspapers.

By now the mass movement will be anything but, although a hardcore of activists will remain and must be managed. This is usually done by providing a displacement activity.

The SWP publish a newspaper, the content of which is barely worthy of mention except that it is used to maintain the party line. It’s more important function is simply to provide something for SWP members to do.

So the people who started out taking to the streets to oppose the state, many of them young and idealistic, are now reduced to selling the SWP’s propaganda apparatus to other members of the SWP.

Another activity is to canvas potential voters for the electoral arm of the operation. Whilst this may have achieved some success early on when public sentiment was against the war it is now likely to be floundering. The charismatic leader will already have been discredited in the media using the tactics already discussed and the votes will be beginning to dry up. To ensure that this continues the agents running the SWP will engineer a split.

This will happen across the entire operation. Front groups will be wound down, vicious splits will ravage what little is left and members willl begin to leave in droves, thoroughly disillusioned with revolutionary political activity.

The initial aims of the State have been achieved. Whilst the war rages, public opposition is completely neutered.

Those who remain within the party will be constantly promised that the revolution is just around the corner. These are the most docile members of the political classes and will be strung along with a bright red matador’s cape until the next time they need to be mobilised to manufacture public consent for State atrocities.