Codename Arthur

THE TRUE STORY OF AN ANTI-FASCIST SPY WHO IDENTIFIED THE LONDON NAILBOMBER

Twenty-seven years ago this summer, a young man approached me with a quite extraordinary request. Simply put, he wanted to join the British National Party (BNP), then the UK’s most pre-eminent far-right movement, as a spy. He was a committed anti-fascist and had been active on demos and protests, but felt the best way he could fight the threat was from the inside.

Over the next decade this young man, who I’m going to call “Arthur”, operated at the heart of Britain’s far-right movements. He attended over 400 meetings, rallies and leafleting sessions, and gave us detailed reports of everyone he met, everything he saw and everything that was being planned.

And this is his story.