UK Spycops Infiltrated About 1,000 Activist Groups. The Undercover Policing Inquiry Is Still Hearing It
LONDON — Britain’s Special Demonstration Squad and later the National Public Order Intelligence Unit put undercover officers into about 1,000 political, environmental, and social-justice groups. Officers stole dead children’s identities as cover. Some fathered children with women they were targeting and then vanished. The Metropolitan Police has spent years apologizing in civil claims while the public inquiry, announced by Theresa May, crawls through tranches of evidence. The official site is ucpi.org.uk.
Tranche 3 Phase 3 hearings started on June 15, 2026. On August 2, 2026 the inquiry heard that a senior officer, Jon Boutcher, concluded within months of taking responsibility for the SDS that the unit had to be shut down because it was conducting unjustified surveillance and was badly run. The Guardian reported that evidence. The Home Office opened a consultation on the inquiry’s future in July 2026, which campaigners read as a threat to finish the job.
The AEGIS Alliance has covered police infiltration as a method, not a metaphor. Related: the FBI’s Project Chanology file, WikiLeaks’ Spy Files Russia, Police Accountability, and Activism.
