Clive Ponting - British Whistleblower, Anti-Imperialist Historian has died age 74

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Clive Ponting, Hero..

August 7, 2020  Craig Murrayi

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Clive Ponting, doyen of British whistleblowers, anti-imperialist historian and campaigner for Scottish independence has died at his home in Kelso, age 74.

Clive came closer than anybody else to saving British society and industry from the horrors of Thatcherism. There is a danger in history of believing that everything that happened was inevitable. In fact Thatcher’s government after two years in office was extremely unpopular just before the Falklands War. Conservative party support was at 23% in the opinion polls, well behind both Labour and the Liberal/Social Democratic Party. Thatcher’s later popularity was entirely unexpected and based on a tidal wave of jingoism as a result of a short, successful war with Argentina. Without the Falklands War the privatisation of water, rail gas and electricity and the destruction of 90% of British heavy industry may either not have happened or have been short-lived.

The Argentinian dictator Leopoldo Galtieri was as obnoxious as Thatcher, and also a desperately unpopular leader looking to unleash a wave of nationalist support. The Falkland Islands are one of the UK’s most pointless surviving colonies, though unlike most at least are not a tax haven. After Galtieri sent his forces on April 2 1982 to occupy the Falklands, the United States were leading international efforts to broker a compromise agreement, when all possibility of a peaceful resolution was destroyed by the UK sinking the battleship General Belgrano.

It is worth noting that the Argentinians had occupied the Falklands without one single British casualty. On 2 May 1982 when an advanced British nuclear submarine sunk the old second world war cruiser Belgrano, killing 323 Argentinians in the most horrible of fashions, not a single British person had been hurt in the Falklands War.

The claim that the ancient Belgrano was a serious military threat was always spurious. Clive Ponting, a Principal level civil servant in the MOD, blew the whistle on the fact that it was not, as claimed, heading towards the Falkland Islands when it was destroyed, but was in fact steaming away. The truth of the matter is that the decision was never a military one, but was a murderous political decision, to make inevitable the war the Tories wanted so badly to revive their political fortunes. As we have seen with Brexit, imperialist hubris and sheer atavism are very easy to awaken in British nationalist society, steeped in tales of Empire and World War.

Clive Ponting’s revelation put a temporary dent in support for the war but it could not ultimately make any difference to the vast surge of Tory popularity from the easy military victory which ensued. That popularity was used by Thatcher to go on to destroy her “enemies within” – industrial workers – and change British society fundamentally to one based unquestioningly on the notion that the only human motive is private greed.

However Clive Ponting achieved something vital; when he was tried under the Official Secrets Act for his leak, which he heroically avowed, the jury accepted his public interest defence and acquitted him, against the clear direction of the judge. He had made the official secrets act a dead letter. When I blew the whistle on torture and extraordinary rendition, in circumstances very similar to Clive, I too was plainly in breach of the official secrets act. From first hand accounts of friends who were at senior level meetings in the FCO with Jack Straw, I know that the only reason I am not in jail now is that Straw and Goldsmith feared a “Ponting verdict” – that a jury would refuse to convict me for doing good. I believe the same is true of Katharine Gun.

Of course, New Labour were never going to accept that kind of limitation on power, and they instituted secret courts for national security cases, with no juries and where the security services can introduce “intelligence evidence” that the defendant themself is not permitted to see. Clive, Katharine or myself would be quickly in jail, without a jury, if we did our whistleblowing today. And of course the state currently believes it has found another way to jail me without the intervention of a jury. So I fear Clive’s achievement has not outlived him, but his name deserves to be remembered with great honour.

In recent years, Clive became a fairly frequent below the line commenter on this blog, modestly identifying only as “Clive P” and bringing his government experience and academic research into the discussion. Like me, he came to believe that the only way to free British society from ingrained imperialist thought would be to break up the UK itself. Having retired to Kelso he became a strong supporter of Scottish Independence.

I am mortified we never met. We emailed each other quite frequently, and a couple of planned meetings fell through because one or the other of us was unwell. He had to cancel a planned talk on Independence at Doune the Rabbit Hole as his health deteriorated. In June he contacted me aware that his health was failing. He had things he wished to say before he left us, on what he had learnt from his experiences and on the authoritarian tendencies in the British state. I discussed this with Alex Salmond and we all agreed the Alex Salmond Show would be the best venue for this. Clive asked that we wait a few weeks until he had recovered strength from his latest rounds of chemotherapy. Sadly that strength never came back. He deserves to sleep well after a good life lived. 

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/08/clive-ponting-hero/ 
 

[Nemuri Kyoshiro]

Thanks for posting this. Clive Ponting stood his ground for the greater good.

[Eldnah]

Going to raise 3 points 

 

1) Re no casualties in the Argentinian invasion 

Thats true but it ignores that its only true because the UK intercepted transmissions and was able to alert them so the Garrison wasnt asleep in bed. The Argentine attack started with commandoes assaulting the Marines accommodation with grenades and SMGs - without the warning they would have been killed in their sleep. That was the Argentine intent.

 

2) The Belgrano sinking - its indisputable the ship was sailing away at the time it was sunk - the claim otherwise was a massive government own goal and possibbly an error - which they then refused to acknowledge.  However 

A) ships Turn around quickly

B) The Belgrano and carrier task group had tried to attack the day before it was sunk but the carrier couldn't launch - Belgrano and 25 May were under orders to try again (UK had broken Argentine codes)

Incidentally it was steaming away from the task force not the islands or as some suggest back to port when sunk - 

c) There had been airstrikes and fighting between task force and argentine units before the Belgrano's sinking -  The Sinking wasnt an out of the blue sudden shot that some commentators have claimed.

 

3) The war itself - Absolutely true that it got the Tories back in in 1983, I would disagree they wanted to fight it to win the next election though, I would say they committed to fighting a war which was very difficult for the UK to win* because if they didnt it was very unlikely they would stil be in power for the next election.

 

But as an aside - When I think of the Argentine Regime** at that time - a regime whose response to dissent is a short helicopter flight ending in a swimming lesson  then to leave the Falklanders in their hands is unacceptable.

 

It could be argued as well that losing the war saved countless other Argentine lives by Bringing down Galteris Junta. But therin lies the only positive, because the war was in reality the result of  poor communications doubly so for the UK side who showed they had no desire to keep the islands, but who (rightly) wouldnt do anything without the islanders say, but also failed to appreciate how serious Argentina was - so they were just trying to string out talks until the Islanders gradually drifted into wanting to be argentine. Retiring the Endurance gave the Argentines the idea if they sped up the process the UK would say ok fair enough they are yours.

 

 

*US USSR and many others (including argentina) all thought it was impossible, 

**Pinochet's Chilean  regime wasn't much better - but he was an ally in 82 so we turned a blind eye to the treatment of his own people afterwards. Hypocricy and real politic

Edited August 11, 2020 by Eldnah