Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Archives reveal MI5 spied on top leftwinger Laski

SPOOKS intercepted Labour Party chairman Harold Laski’s private correspondence during the 1930s and ’40s in a bid to expose his links to the Communist Party.

Files released today show that MI5 intercepted Laski’s private letters from 1930 until his death in 1950 aged 56 — despite an MI5 report to the Home Office as early as 1930 saying he was “not a communist.”

Laski was a prominent Labour leftwinger, who chaired the party during its landslide election victory in 1945, having moved towards Marxism during the extreme economic hardship that engulfed Britain in the 1930s.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Victor Grossman with some of the works he published in the G
Features / 5 February 2026
5 February 2026

Hundreds in Berlin gathered on January 15 to honour the US-born socialist who made East Germany his home. Florentine Morales Sandoval reports

Dalton Trumbo at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in 1947. Photo: Public domain
Features / 1 December 2025
1 December 2025

The daughter of a legendary blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter has spoken out against the reactionary move, says MIKE SCHNEIDER

File photo dated 27/03/23 of former prime minister Sir Tony Blair during an interview
Features / 7 October 2025
7 October 2025

JOHN GREEN has doubts about the efficacy of the Freedom of Information Act, once trumpeted by Tony Blair

President Donald Trump, center, speaks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, during a group photo of NATO heads of state and government at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, June 25, 2025
War Economy / 8 July 2025
8 July 2025

In an address to the Communist Party’s executive at the weekend international secretary KEVAN NELSON explained why the communists’ watchwords must be Jobs not Bombs and Welfare not Warfare