'How UK's intelligence services target dissident academics' – A discussion with Piers Robinson and David Miller
"They examine The Grayzone's revelations of journalist Paul Mason's collusion with a top intelligence officer to destroy the careers of "rogue academics."
I highly recommend watching this interview with academics, Piers Robinson and David Miller by The Grayzone.
Dissident antiwar UK academics Piers Robinson and David Miller tell Max Blumenthal how they were targeted by the British intelligence services and its media proxies. They examine The Grayzone's revelations of journalist Paul Mason's collusion with a top intelligence officer to destroy the careers of "rogue academics."
If you haven’t already, I recommend reading The Grayzone’s series regarding British journalist and intelligence asset, Paul Mason’s activities in service to the state, linked below.
Leaked emails reveal British journalist Paul Mason plotting with an intel contractor to destroy The Grayzone through “relentless deplatforming” and a “full nuclear legal” attack. The scheme is part of a wider planned assault on the UK left.
A former Trotskyist and BBC journeyman, journalist Paul Mason has made a career as the establishment’s favorite gatekeeper of the UK left. Since the Russian military incursion into Ukraine, he has cemented his position as one of Britain’s most vocal “left” cheerleaders for Western military intervention.
While leading a “U.K. left” delegation to Kiev and a demonstration through the streets of London in support of NATO military escalation against Russia, Mason has accordingly used his platform to assail journalists, academics, Labour party members and private citizens who oppose shipping piles of advanced weaponry to Ukraine.
In a series of recent columns, Mason called for the state-enforced suppression of facts and perspectives he considers overly sympathetic to the Kremlin, and demanded “state action” against members of the media that oppose the NATO line on Ukraine. He placed The Grayzone at the top of his fantasy censorship target list.
Mason has since announced a run for parliament on the Labour ticket to wage his crusade against “disinformation” from inside the House of Commons.
The Grayzone, meanwhile, has learned through anonymously leaked emails and documents that Mason has been engaged in a malicious secret campaign that aims to enlist the British state and “friendly” intelligence cut-outs to undermine, censor and even criminalize antiwar dissenters.
In one leaked email, Mason thundered for the “relentless deplatforming” of The Grayzone and the creation of “a kind of permanent rebuttal operation” to discredit it.
In leaked emails, celebrity journalist Paul Mason plots extensively with Andy Pryce of the UK Foreign Office Counter Disinformation and Media Development unit.
Pryce’s Counter Disinformation unit has been cloaked behind a veil of near-total secrecy since its inception.
Mason and Pryce sketched a blueprint for an information warfare outfit funded “through cut-outs” and modeled after the notorious Integrity Initiative.
Mason pitched a “Putin Proxy Watch” project guided by “info war experts” to attack “bad actors” in the UK.
Mason calls for suspending UK libel law to smear targets, special effects-driven project to sensationalize Russian atrocities.
Researcher Emma Briant advised Mason on his leftist target list, proposing adding independent outlet Declassified UK.
Mason proposed astroturfed “black and Asian voices” project to push back on Black and brown critics of Ukraine proxy war.
Mason revealed his participation in upcoming BBC assault on Stop The War Coalition.
In his covert assault on antiwar scholars, “left-wing” journalist and security state collaborator Paul Mason enlisted an academic snitch who knew his targets well.
In the latest installment of The Grayzone’s ongoing investigation into the anti-democratic, security state-influenced activities of Paul Mason, we look at how one of Britain’s most prominent alleged left-wing journalists and an ever-expanding cast of covert helpers targeted scholars who dared challenge establishment narratives on the conflict in Ukraine.
Amidst his campaign to neutralize the UK antiwar left, Paul Mason declared in an email to several academics willing to inform on and undermine their own colleagues: “the far left rogue academics is who I’m after… The important task is to quarantine their ‘soft’ influencers and expose/stigmatise the hard ideologists.”
Mason’s fishing expedition was conducted in apparent coordination with Andy Pryce, a senior British intelligence official involved in a series of malign information warfare and censorship initiatives.
The journalist’s key academic enabler, self-styled counter-disinformation researcher Emma Briant, not only helped further his campaign to target antiwar figures, but furnished bogus claims about one individual which appears to have inspired a BBC smear piece on academic critics of the established narrative about killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Many of those she snitched on considered her a colleague and even a comrade.
Rather than own up to the activities exposed by the leaked emails, Briant has engaged in lawfare, threatening The Grayzone with a formal “cease and desist” demand. Sent by her lawyer on June 10th, the filing falsely charged that Kit Klarenberg, one of the authors of this article, played a direct role in the “misappropriation” of private communications.
Briant’s legal counsel went on to threaten that his client would seek a “prohibitory injunction” to prevent further reporting on the leaked material, if not launch a claim for compensation due to “damage to her career and reputation,” if this outlet failed to comply with the demand.
Briant’s attempt to muzzle The Grayzone is understandable, for as we will see, she has a lot to hide.
Self-styled disinformation researcher Emma Briant
Naming names within academia
On March 3rd, Paul Mason emailed his intelligence contact Andy Pryce to ask for help in identifying “a tool to trace memes and talking points to their source,” in order to “demonstrate to people how innocent amplifiers end up echoing disinfo and themes.”
Pryce was amenable, stating that he would “raise this need with colleagues.” He added that, “we need an organisation alongside Full Fact that is delving deeper and being more pointy in its messaging.” Two days later, he and Mason sketched out a blueprint for a covert propaganda mill they dubbed the International Information Brigade. (See the second installment of this series for more on this shady endeavor).
