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Economic League disbanded (1)

01 January 1991

Economic League disbanded
artdoc July=1993

The Economic League, the rightwing employment vetting agency,
which kept blacklists on thousands of people, is reported to have
disbanded. The League, which is acknowledged to have close links
with the security services, had accumulated files on at least
30,000 people. During the 1980s it had more than 2,000 companies
subscribing to it, bringing in an annual income of over Ã1
million. The files that it held contained details of political
and trade union activists, Labour Party MPs and individuals who,
for instance, had written to their local papers protesting at
government policy. The League always maintained that `innocent'
people had nothing to fear as they only kept files on `known
members of extreme organisations'. Nonetheless, the information
they disseminated resulted in numerous cases of long periods of
unemployment and hardship for the victims.
It is believed that the League will resurface in different
guises and that its card files, used to avoid the provisions of
the Data Protection Act, will be maintained. Stan Hardy, the
League's director-general, and Jack Windsor, director of
information, are thought to be setting up a new consultancy using
this material while the Birmingham branch, which dealt with
alleged `subversives' in the construction industry, is believed
to have been taken over by former director Ian Kerr.
Guardian 24.4.93.

Statewatch vol 3 no 3 May-June 1993