What is the world if we cannot see it? It’s not that we wanted to see Matt Hancock’s low-resolution body writhing and grasping, like a clumsy, horny fourteen-year-old on their first date, with his aide, in a Westminster office. But undoubtedly, in many ways, we did need to. Everybody who couldn’t go to their partner’s funeral, who had said their final goodbye to their parents through a zoom call, who had forgone seeing their lover for months on end. These people deserved to know that it was one rule for them(,) and another for their health secretary.

We also needed to see WhatsApp messages of Hancock joking with his former pub landlord about the corruption of their dealings, after he gave him £30 million worth of covid contracts. These leaks became necessary, as the government was continually taken to court for failing to publish details of covid contracts. Over £12bn of contracts went undeclared until way after they should’ve been. 

It was also leaks that revealed the government was spending far more per item for PPE than they cost. As NHS staff received gagging orders across the country, it was investigative journalists leaking their stories that gave them a voice.

As a result, whistleblowers and investigative journalists have become key workers during this pandemic. They’ve given the people a comprehensive education about the current workings of the government. This is the context surrounding the government’s proposition to intensely criminalise their line of work.

The Consultancy

The Official Secrets Act is responsible for ensuring government secrets are kept secret. It’s meant to ensure that hostile state actors can’t access sensitive data. However, in a new consultancy on reforms to the Act, the Home Office made clear that it saw “no distinction in severity” between investigative journalism and hostile foreign state activities. In fact, it went one step further, declaring that “an unauthorised disclosure may be as or more serious”, suggesting journalism may be even more of a threat to the government than foreign espionage.

The consultancy then suggested more severe punishments and much easier prosecution of journalists. The consultancy suggested upping the maximum prison sentence of those prosecuted from two to fourteen years. It rejected proposals to reinstate a “public interest” clause to the act, which was taken out of the Act in 1989. This would have provided protection to whistleblowers exposing, say, Matt Hancock’s affair, which was deemed to be in the public interest by the prime minister. And it rejected any idea that the Home Office should have to prove a leak was damaging in order to prosecute. This opens up every and any leak to prosecution. 

The Crisis

Dr Paul Lashmar said the proposals were “designed to prevent government embarrassment”. He also pointed out that these movements to criminalise journalists through this Act isn’t new. In 1911, as the bedrock for this Act was being passed (The Official Secrets Act 1911), The Newspaper Proprietors Association stated it was concerned about the Act’s “far-reaching liabilities … upon the public and the Press”. Lashmar notes that the more powerful 1989 version of the Act came into force after a damning memoir of M15 by former agent Peter Wright and in light of leaks showing that MI5 vetted BBC employees. 

So too, does the upcoming updated Official Secrets Act come with its own context. Not only the leaks detailed above, but a government becoming more and more repressive towards journalism. In 2018, the homes of two journalists looking into the Loughinisland massacre in Northern Ireland were raided by police. They were highlighting police involvement in the massacre. The UK’s attitude to Julian Assange in particular highlights the government’s desire to silence investigative journalism into their war crimes in the Middle East, amongst other things. And very recently, two homes were raided by the ICO and computers confiscated, in an attempt to find the whistleblower who leaked the Matt Hancock pictures. 

This attack on journalism comes with a more general authoritarian wave of legislation from the current government. In issue #3 of The Lemming, I looked at the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (PCSC Bill), made infamous by the #KillTheBill protests, and the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act, which gave police spies a license to kill. 

Beyond this, there’s The Nationality and Borders Bill, which equates coastguards saving refugees to people smugglers, and has been condemned by Amnesty International, The Refugee Council, and The British Red Cross. Then there’s the Overseas Operations Act 2021, which legalises torture, murder and otherwise for British service personnel overseas (in the wake of numerous prosecutions and complaints against British occupation forces in Ireland and The Middle East). 

The Elections Bill would require voters to show ID to vote, disenfranchising millions of voters, mainly working-class people and minorities. The Higher Education Bill would disallow no-platforming of speakers, a bill intent on crushing hostility towards popular far-right performers. This is a wave, hidden underneath layers of news about COVID-19, of authoritarian legislation, with a brand new Official Secrets Act to make sure nobody hears of its consequences. 

What is to be done?

Labour won’t win in parliament until the next election, at least. Even then, Keir Starmer’s party seems very keen to support much of this legislative agenda. The primary opposition to this bill now is you, and us. 

Activists from the Kill The Bill movement sent out a call to arms with their declaration of a new wave of protests, saying “Resist The PCSC Bill & All Other Oppressive Legislations”. It is damaging to spread thin a movement, and when there are so many pieces of legislation at play to move against, it becomes clear that we must build a broad coalition to fight them. The next wave of protests must include the Official Secrets Act in their program. 

It also becomes clear that we need more people joining these movements, being part of organisations, and turning up. The bitter ink of Westminster is writing several bloody sonnets to authority and brutality. In the face of this, we must grab the twisted writer by the wrist. Organised and focused disruption (there’s a reason the PCSC bill tries to ban protests in Parliament Square) is key. 

Even the police are saying they have no confidence in the Home Office, as the government gives them more powers but freezes their pay. While the government holds parliament, it doesn’t hold the streets. Protest movements across the liberal spectrum are gaining traction, and we can look to each other for inspiration and motivation. Animal Rebellion, for instance, recently blockaded the entrance to McDonald’s primary meat distributor in the UK, stopping their vehicles from leaving with £1.5 million worth of stock. The recent protests and occupations against Elbit, which supplies military equipment to Israel, disrupted production and sent a clear message. And this year’s ongoing #KillTheBill protests brought together a large coalition of groups, as a result of which we are seeing progress.*

Our primary hope is in the streets. It would be ridiculous to wait for our representatives to save us- it won’t happen. We must, instead, save ourselves. We must control our own fate. 

The Official Secrets Act, most particularly, requires organised groups, guilds and unions of journalists to strike back. As the press, they hold the narrative in their hands. As much as spin doctors and press barons control their words, strong, organised offices of journalists and workers in the press industry can control their narrative, and protect themselves and their colleagues from incarceration and violence. I’m reminded of when print workers distributing The Sun refused to print an edition where Arthur Scargill, leader of the miners’ strike against Thatcher, was depicted as Hitler. There is power in organising within workplaces, particularly in the press. 

We need to see our world, our government, and our power, for what they are. The government wants us left in the dark. And we can see, from the legislation they’re putting in place, what they’re trying to hide from us. We must have clarity of vision, alongside focus and intent on dismantling the horrors we can see, to clear away the rubble surrounding our besieged democracy. 

We must demand the truth, and where we are barred from it, demand the right to seize it.