‘Surviving Spycops’ was an exhibition organised by the campaign group ‘Police Spies Out of Lives’, formed of women activists who were deceived into long-term relationships by undercover police officers.
Many of these horrific cases of state-sanctioned abuse, rape, and deception are finally being widely exposed as part of the ongoing ‘Spycops Inquiry’.
The first day of the exhibition included four different discussions, including an update on the public inquiry, and a panel discussion on ‘Art as Protest’.
The exhibition featured various campaign material, including posters, films, and other materials produced over the long fight for truth and justice, alongside illustrations made in collaboration with students from the Bournemouth Arts University.
Communist artist and RCP activist Nicholas Baldion also exhibited his latest work, Police Spies Ruin Lives.
In the same triptych format as one of Baldion’s earlier works, Social Murder: Grenfell in Three Parts, Police Spies Ruin Lives has both an outer panel and a three-part inside panel, evoking the sense that the outside façade obscures a dark truth within.
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The outside panel depicts a scrawny, deceitful-looking man trying to kiss a woman, who looks suspicious and hesitant.
It then opens up to reveal the same man now dressed in a police uniform, and the woman standing looking away with a baby.
Standing between them, on the main panel, is the all-intrusive, monstrous, surveillant eye of the state, with its sly, writhing tentacles manoeuvring their way into the lives of various activist groups.
Some of the many thousands of groups spied upon are represented, including trade-union and environmental activists, anti-racist campaigners – notably the Stephen Lawrence campaign – anti-Poll Tax campaigners, and blacklisted construction workers.
Also portrayed are those that were the insidious master minds and conspirators: the police, the politicians, the private-sector businesses they colluded with – in other words, the collective forces of the ruling class.
As Baldion explained:
“The Spycops scandal is a crime that exposes, that takes the mask off the nature of the capitalist state, and the extent it is willing to go to defend the interests of a tiny handful. It exposes the lie that we live in a truly democratic society, when even peaceful protest movements are spied upon and subverted from within.”
Exploitation and abuse
What makes this scandal especially moving is the very emotive, human side of the story. These cases of deception had a chilling, traumatic effect on many people, and caused paranoia and fear within certain activist groups.
Far from making the state look strong and all-powerful, however, this scandal reveals the state’s weakness.
That the ruling class took such measures against communists, socialists, trade unionists, environmentalists, anti-racist campaigners, etc. shows how much of a threat they perceive ordinary people to be when they are politically mobilised.
The Spycops scandal also uncovers the revolving door that exists between the police, private businesses, and the secret intelligence services.
Mark Kennedy, for example, was only exposed when he started working for private espionage group Global Open, and no longer had access to the fake passports provided by the police.
The Spycops scandal goes hand-in-hand with the blacklisting scandal, where thousands of workers’ lives were ruined when the bosses decided to blacklist them for trade union activity.
You can really see these tentacles of private business and the state all intermeshed in Baldion’s painting. But you also get the sense that it’s a paranoid state; they’re terrified of the potential power of the working class.
With each fresh scandal – from Spycops, to the ‘Prince Andrew’ scandal, to the countless cases of police abuse that continue to this day – the more and more the mask slips, and the public see the true face of the establishment.
As of October 2025, the majority of adults have little or no confidence in the police’s ability to tackle local crime. After the police were seen to be arresting hundreds of pensioners at recent Palestine protests, distrust towards the police has likely risen further.
The only way we can put an end to the rotten, abusive establishment is by overthrowing the exploitative system that it defends.
