Britain's X-Files Are Far Darker Than Any American TV

The plot of V For Vendetta doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore to the British, who have lived through the worst rights abuse in living memory after a mystery pathogen swept through the nation and instituted the need to spy on its own people and deal out intimidating prison sentences.

In the 2005 film, the Norsefire party conducted a false flag terrorist attack with mass casualties on northern towns using a biological weapon from a secret government research facility, using a magical pre-manufactured Big Pharma cure as a means to take totalitarian control and institute a two-tier society with mass surveillance and state enforcement of ideology. It ends with the assassination of politicians and the storming of parliament.

There's only difference: in the real-life version, the government is left-wing, like all the others.

So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked.

What's most surprising is how much of a surprise this is to the residents of East-Berlin-on-Thames, because a basic read of history – the version not taught in British schools or shown on British television – tells a different story the rest of the world is quite familiar with. It is exactly who the British Establishment are, and what they are; at least, what they have been to us since WWI. They've just been rather good at keeping it quiet until the Internet got in the way.

MI5 Rigged An Election with Forged Soviet Documents

Four days before the 1924 general election, British newspapers published a letter purportedly from Soviet official Grigory Zinoviev urging British communists to prepare for revolution and infiltrate the military. The letter's publication contributed to Labour's electoral defeat and justified severing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. It went mysteriously missing.

Declassified MI5 files and National Archives documents later revealed the letter was almost certainly forged, with intelligence services aware of serious authenticity concerns before its release. The timing of publication, coordination with the Daily Mail, and subsequent investigations all point to deliberate political manipulation.

MI5 Vetted BBC Staff for Six Decades

For over sixty years, MI5 routinely vetted BBC job applicants, blocking employment for individuals deemed politically unreliable. This political screening, conducted without public knowledge, particularly targeted left-wing journalists, writers, and producers. The practice, finally acknowledged by the BBC in 2018, involved detailed background checks on potential employees' political affiliations, associations, and beliefs.

Files reveal how intelligence assessments could effectively end broadcasting careers before they began, creating an invisible barrier to media employment based on political conformity rather than professional competence.

Who Put Bella In The Wych Elm?

In 1943, four boys discovered a human skeleton stuffed inside the hollow trunk of a wych elm in Hagley Wood, Worcestershire. The remains were identified as those of a woman, dubbed "Bella" after graffiti began appearing around the area asking "Who put Bella in the wych elm?"

The case took on wartime intrigue when theories emerged that she might have been a German spy parachuted into Britain, possibly part of Operation Lena. Some speculated she was Clarabella Dronkers, though this was never proven. The mysterious circumstances - including fabric found in her mouth suggesting she may have been murdered - and the subsequent anonymous graffiti campaign asking about her identity have kept the case alive in public imagination for over 80 years.

(Not about the British state, but added for fun)

The Treasury Secretly Shipped The Empire's Gold to Canada

As German U-boats prowled the Atlantic and invasion seemed imminent, under complete secrecy, the Treasury evacuated virtually the entire gold reserves of the United Kingdom—along with securities worth billions in today's money—to vaults in Canada and the United States. It was known as Operation Fish.

The extremely secretive United Kingdom Security Deposit, operating in the vault of the Sun Life building in Montreal, arranged for the sale of Britain's negotiable securities on the New York Stock Exchange over the next few years to pay for Britain's war expenses.

The operation involved disguised ships, coded communications, and a level of financial risk few governments have ever contemplated. While presented as prudent wartime planning, declassified files reveal the profound desperation behind this monetary exodus and raise uncomfortable questions about what other contingency plans existed for abandoning British territory entirely.

The Government Sprayed Bioweapons Over British Cities

Across three decades, government scientists conducted more than 100 secret experiments releasing chemicals and bacteria over British cities, countryside, and coastlines. The Ministry of Defence sprayed zinc cadmium sulphide from aircraft over Norwich, dropped bacterial cultures from ships off the coast of Dorset, and released biological agents in London Underground stations.

Officials claimed the substances were harmless, but independent reviews commissioned in 2002 found inadequate safety testing and questioned long-term health impacts. The experiments, conducted without public knowledge or consent, treated British territory and citizens as a vast laboratory for testing how biological and chemical weapons might spread through populated areas.

Anthrax Tests Made A Scottish Island Uninhabitable

On a remote Scottish island called Gruinard, government scientists detonated anthrax bombs and scattered infected cattle feed to test biological weapons for potential use against Nazi Germany in Operation Vegetarian. The experiments worked rather too well.

The island became so thoroughly contaminated it remained uninhabitable for nearly half a century, despite repeated government assurances about safety. Internal Ministry of Defence documents, hidden until the 1980s, reveal officials knew the contamination was far worse than publicly admitted, and the eventual decontamination required removing the entire topsoil.

MI6 Protected Soviet Spies to Avoid Embarrassment

The UK's role in the Venona project decrypts exposed Soviet spies like Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess at the heart of Britain's anti-Soviet espionage programs and almost destroyed intelligence sharing with the US. The government suppressed public disclosure for decades to protect MI6's reputation and ongoing operations.

Declassified GCHQ and MI5 files reveal the extent of internal cover-ups, with intelligence services knowing about deep penetration while allowing compromised officers to continue in sensitive positions. The delayed accountability enabled further damage to Western intelligence capabilities and demonstrated how institutional embarrassment could override national security considerations.

The Dog Suicide Bridge

Since the 1950s, at least 300 dogs have been recorded jumping to their suicidal death from the Overtoun Bridge in Dumbarton, Scotland, with approximately 50 fatalities resulting from the falls. The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has also investigated the bridge and surrounding area but their findings proved inconclusive.

(Not about the British state, but added for fun)

Military Scientists Killed Volunteers with Sarin

At the government's secretive chemical weapons facility, Porton Down, serviceman Ronald Maddison volunteered for what he believed were tests involving common cold remedies. Instead, scientists dripped liquid sarin—one of the most lethal nerve agents ever created—onto his skin. Within hours, Maddison was dead.

The initial inquest returned a verdict of misadventure, but a 2004 re-examination ruled it unlawful killing after evidence emerged of systematic deception about the experiments' true purpose. Ministry of Defence files reveal hundreds of military personnel underwent chemical weapons testing without informed consent, part of a programme where human subjects became unwitting casualties in Britain's quest for battlefield superiority.

The State Built A Secret Underground City

Beneath the Wiltshire countryside, in Corsham, the British government constructed one of the world's most extensive underground facilities, designed to house the entire apparatus of central government during nuclear war with Russia. The Burlington complex, built in secret during the 1950s, featured miles of tunnels, communication centers, dormitories, and facilities for several thousand officials. It is now used for information warfare.

Declassified Cabinet Office papers reveal the extraordinary scope of continuity planning, including detailed arrangements for governing a post-nuclear Britain from underground chambers. The complex remained operational until the 1990s, with regular exercises testing emergency government procedures.

Britain's Nevada Contaminated Two Continents

In the Australian outback and Pacific islands, Britain detonated nuclear weapons with consequences extending far beyond the test sites themselves. At Maralinga, radioactive debris scattered across vast areas inhabited by Aboriginal communities, while at Christmas Island, servicemen witnessed hydrogen bomb explosions with minimal protective equipment.

Royal Commission investigations later documented systematic disregard for safety protocols, inadequate decontamination efforts, and deliberate concealment of radiation exposure data. Veterans' medical records were altered or destroyed, and cleanup operations proved so inadequate British authorities eventually paid millions in compensation.

Decolonisation Triggered History's Largest Cover-Up

As the British Empire dissolved, colonial administrations received explicit instructions to destroy or conceal documents that might "embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others." Operation Legacy represented the largest systematic destruction of government records in British history, with officials burning files, removing documents to London, and creating sanitised versions of historical events for newly independent governments.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office records, declassified in the 2010s, reveal the deliberate scope of this historical erasure. The operation aimed to prevent post-independence governments and future historians from accessing evidence of colonial abuses, torture, and illegal activities.

MI6 Orchestrated A Coup In Iran For Oil

While American CIA involvement in overthrowing Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh is well documented, MI6 played an equally crucial role in orchestrating the coup. Declassified documents reveal British intelligence initiated the operation to protect Anglo-Iranian Oil Company interests after Mossadegh nationalised Iranian oil.

Foreign Office cables show detailed planning for regime change, coordination with American intelligence services, and systematic bribery of Iranian officials and military commanders. The operation succeeded in restoring the Shah to power but created long-term instability and anti-Western sentiment throughout the region.

The Navy Dumped Chemical Weapons in British Waters

When Allied forces captured vast stockpiles of German chemical weapons after 1945, British authorities faced an uncomfortable disposal problem. Their solution, revealed in National Archives files decades later, involved loading ships with thousands of tonnes of Nazi-produced nerve agents and dumping them in the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean.

Operation Sandcastle proceeded with minimal environmental assessment and no public consultation, creating underwater chemical weapons dumps whose precise locations remain partially classified.

Britain and Israel Manufactured War Against Egypt

The Suez Crisis appeared to be a straightforward confrontation between Britain, France, and Egypt over canal nationalisation. In reality, declassified documents reveal a secret protocol signed at Sèvres, where Britain and France colluded with Israel to manufacture a pretext for war.

The plan required Israel to attack Egypt, providing Britain and France with justification for military intervention to "separate the combatants" and seize the canal. When the conspiracy unravelled under American pressure, it marked not just military failure but the exposure of imperial duplicity. The carefully orchestrated deception, documented in released Foreign Office files, demonstrated how democratic governments could engage in elaborate international fraud while maintaining public pretences of moral authority.

Military Scientists Conducted LSD Mind Control Experiments on Troops

Porton Down, Britain's secretive chemical weapons facility, secretly administered LSD to approximately 72 military volunteers between 1961 and 1972 as part of experiments designed to test "incapacitating agents" for battlefield use. Parliamentary documents reveal Royal Marines were given doses of up to 200 micrograms of LSD during field exercises codenamed "Moneybags," "Recount," and "Short Change," with filmed footage showing troops becoming incapable of military action and finding "almost everything funny."

The experiments were conducted under the pretext of developing "humane warfare" but officials admitted the effects were "variable and unpredictable," lasting up to 90 minutes with soldiers requiring overnight recovery. LSD was obtained through three sources: synthesis at Porton Down, commercial suppliers (before it became controlled), or directly from the US Army Chemical facility at Edgewood, Maryland, suggesting coordination with American MK-Ultra programmes.

A Reactor Fire Contaminated The Lake District for Decades

Britain's worst nuclear accident began with a reactor fire at Windscale burning for three days, releasing radioactive material across the Lake District and beyond. While authorities assured the public of minimal risk, internal Atomic Energy Authority documents show officials feared far worse contamination than publicly acknowledged.

Milk from surrounding farms was quietly destroyed, and health monitoring programmes tracked potential cancer increases among local populations—research whose findings remained buried in government files for decades.

A Military Base Expelled An Entire Island Population

To establish a joint military base with the United States on Diego Garcia, British authorities systematically depopulated the entire Chagos Archipelago (the one we just surrendered), forcibly removing around 2,000 islanders who had lived there for generations.

Foreign Office cables, later declassified, reveal the calculated nature of this displacement, including preventing food supplies from reaching the islands and refusing to allow residents to return from trips abroad. The operation created a population of exiles who spent decades fighting for recognition and compensation.

Officials Covered Up Contaminated Blood

Between the 1970s and 1990s, contaminated blood products infected thousands of haemophiliacs and transfusion recipients with HIV and hepatitis, killing over 3,000 people. The Infected Blood Inquiry's 2024 final report documented systematic failures: importing high-risk blood from American prisons and drug users, continuing dangerous treatments despite known risks, and covering up evidence of contamination.

Government files revealed officials knew about infection risks years before changing policies, while pharmaceutical companies concealed safety data and health authorities destroyed potentially incriminating documents. The scandal represents one of the worst treatment disasters in NHS history.

The State Knew About Celebrity Paedophiles And Pakistani Rape Gangs In The 60s

A nationwide HMIC review found police had recorded allegations and intelligence about Savile as far back as 1958. Lancashire Police investigated Cyril Smith in 1969 but the Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to prosecute, as it failed children in the Shirley Oaks care home and others investigated under Operation Cleopatra. The following years saw the prosecutions of 81 offenders such as Stuart Hall, Rolf Harris, Duncan Bartlett, Gary Glitter, Jonathan King, Max Clifford, Dave Lee Travis, and Huw Edwards. 300 men on a secret paedophile list were identified in 2025.

Other offenders remain at large because they are too sensitive to prosecute.

In 1971 MPs Renée Short and Jill Knight brought up concerns about “child prostitution” involving Pakistani men reported in Birmingham as written Parliamentary questions to the Home Secretary Reginald Maudling under the Health government – which had been reported in local British newspapers since 1955. As Chief Constable Simon Bailey from Operation Hydrant later explained about 4000+ cases, “as a society, we are going to have to recognise and accept, that during the 1970s and 1980s in particular, there was widespread sexual abuse of children taking place.”

The Army Detained Hundreds Without Trial Using Torture Techniques

Northern Ireland's introduction of internment without trial, Operation Demetrius, led to mass arrests based on often outdated intelligence, with hundreds detained indefinitely without charge. More disturbing were the interrogation methods employed at Shackleton Barracks: hooding, wall-standing, subjection to constant noise, sleep deprivation, and denial of food and water.

The Parker Report documented these "five techniques" in clinical detail, while the European Court of Human Rights later ruled them inhuman and degrading treatment. Declassified documents show government ministers were fully briefed on these methods, yet continued authorising their use.

Police Blamed The IRA For A Loyalist Bomb

When a bomb killed 15 people at a Catholic bar in Belfast, Royal Ulster Constabulary statements immediately blamed an IRA "own goal"—claiming republicans had accidentally detonated their own device. This version dominated news coverage and official records for decades.

Only in 2011 did the Police Ombudsman's report confirm what families had long suspected: the bombing was carried out by loyalist paramilitaries, and police knew this within days of the attack. Declassified files reveal systematic misinformation designed to obscure loyalist responsibility and maintain the preferred storyline of republican incompetence.

MI5 Protected Child Abusers For Blackmail

Former MI5 officers claimed Kincora Boys' Home in Belfast was used to gather blackmail material on prominent figures, while official inquiries faced obstruction and missing files. William McGrath, the home's housemaster and leader of a loyalist organisation, continued operating despite security service knowledge of abuse allegations.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry found evidence suggesting state agencies prioritised intelligence operations over child protection, allowing abuse to continue to preserve operational advantage. Declassified documents reveal how institutional failures combined with intelligence priorities to abandon the most vulnerable.

A Secret Assassination Unit "Group 13"

A clandestine unit composed of ex-SAS and military intelligence operatives, Group 13, was allegedly Britain's state-sponsored assassination team, tasked with eliminating individuals who posed threats to national security or government interests. According to Gerald James, former chairman of Astra Holdings, the unit was headed by Stephan Adolphus Kock, an MI6 agent who had "considerable seniority" and "access to the Prime Minister." Private investigator Gary Murray, while researching the unit for his book "Enemies of the State," claims he was dragged into an unmarked van and threatened at gunpoint to abandon his investigation.

In 2011, former US Army Counter Intelligence Corps analyst Trowbridge Ford claimed the constitution of group in the mid 1980s as: "Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee Percy Craddock, former SIS Chief Sir Colin Figures, current SIS chief Christopher Curwen, his deputy Colin McColl, Defence Intelligence Staff Chief Derek Boorman, DIS Director General for Management and Support of Intelligence Vice Admiral John Kerr, MI5 DGSS Anthony Duff, MI5 DDGSS Patrick Walker, MI5 G Branch Director John Deverell, Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong, and Sovbloc operatives Gordon Barrass, Harry Burke and Gerry Warner."

The unit is suspected of involvement in several high-profile deaths, including the 1990 assassination of supergun designer Gerald Bull in Brussels, where Kock was present with "two special forces Colonels" in the three days before Bull's murder.

MI5 Ran Disinformation Against British Politicians

Covert MI5 operation Clockwork Orange involved creating and disseminating false information to discredit British politicians, civil rights activists, and republican figures during the Northern Ireland conflict. Army intelligence officer Colin Wallace later revealed how the programme fabricated documents, planted stories in newspapers, and spread disinformation designed to destabilise political opposition to government policy.

The operation targeted not just Irish republicans but also Labour politicians and civil rights campaigners, suggesting intelligence services were conducting psychological operations against domestic political opponents. Wallace's whistleblowing in the 1990s exposed systematic abuse of intelligence capabilities for partisan political purposes.

Police Sabotaged A Police Corruption Investigation

Metropolitan Police corruption had reached such endemic levels the Home Office commissioned an unprecedented investigation led by officers from rural forces—hence Operation Countryman. The probe uncovered systematic links between detectives and organised crime, including evidence of police involvement in armed robberies and protection rackets.

However, the investigation faced extraordinary obstruction from within the police service itself. Key witnesses were intimidated, evidence disappeared, and senior officers refused cooperation. Home Office files and parliamentary records show the final reports were heavily redacted and never fully published, with ministers citing public interest grounds for withholding findings.

The Army Allowed Its Spies To Torture and Murder

Freddie Scappaticci, codenamed Stakeknife, operated as Britain's highest-placed intelligence asset inside the IRA while simultaneously running the organisation's internal security unit—the feared "Nutting Squad" responsible for torturing and executing suspected informers. For over two decades, the Force Research Unit agent participated in the murders of up to 40 people, many of whom were themselves working for British intelligence services.

The 2024 Operation Kenova report concluded that more lives were lost than saved through Stakeknife's activities, contradicting military claims about his value. Former British officers described systematic sacrificing of lower-level informers to protect Scappaticci's position, with handlers allegedly advising other agents to attend meetings with the Nutting Squad despite knowing they would likely be killed.

MI5 Wiped New Labour's Past

In 1998 it was reported MI5 had compiled 925,000 files on individuals and organisations since 1909, roughly equivalent to 1.6 per cent of the current UK population. The Police National Computer held information on 5.7 million individuals, or about ten per cent of the population.

Home Secretary Jack Straw announced in the sane year MI5 destroyed 175,000 files. File destruction then ceased because of concerns that investigations into espionage cases had been impeded. But the file destruction programme was resumed following the end of the cold war in the early 1990s. The records included the files of New Labour politicians with documented links to communist movements it had previously bugged, such as Peter Mandelson.

A Secret Unit Investigated UFOs for Six Decades

While the Ministry of Defence publicly dismissed UFO reports as misidentified aircraft or "psychological delusions," a section of the Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence (DSTI) inside the Defence Intelligence Staff, DI55, was given the task of conducting investigations of any UFO incident deemed to have "Defence significance" from 1967 onwards.

This clandestine operation began with the Flying Saucer Working Party, established in 1950 by Churchill's scientific adviser Sir Henry Tizard, whose existence was denied for decades. It was "arguably the most marvellously-named committee in the history of the civil service" yet its six-page final report remained classified for fifty years.

DI55 investigators, described as the real "Men in Black," spent millions of pounds tracking incidents like the famous Rendlesham Forest case—often called "Britain's Roswell"—where US military personnel reported encountering a triangular craft with hieroglyphic markings in 1980.

Internal documents reveal DI55 scientists privately discussing "the possibility of intelligent life evolving somewhere outside of our Solar System" while their public position maintained complete scepticism. The programme finally closed in 2009, but not before producing the classified "Condign report" and accumulating over 120,000 pages of documentation.

Recruits Suicided At Deepcut Barracks

Between 1995 and 2002, five young soldiers – Sean Benton, Cheryl James, Martin Limburg, Geoff Gray, and Anthony Bartlett, died from gunshot wounds (and a drug overdose) at the Princess Royal Barracks in Deepcut, Surrey, all officially recorded as suicides despite deeply troubling circumstances which raised serious questions about the culture and safety at the training facility. Each case involved unexplained elements: multiple gunshot wounds in some instances, lack of obvious suicidal indicators, bodies found in the woods, and allegations of "harassment, discrimination and oppressive behaviour."

Questions were raised about how teenagers could access live ammunition unsupervised, and why warning signs of distress weren't acted upon. Parliamentary inquiries, coroner's courts, and multiple investigations followed, but families remained unsatisfied with explanations. In 2016, a fresh inquest into Cheryl James's death recorded suicide, again.

The Government's Weapons Inspector Mysteriously Died After Invalidating Its Case For War

Dr David Kelly, Britain's foremost weapons expert and UN inspector, was found dead in woods near his home two days after parliamentary committee questioning which followed his exposure as the source for BBC reports alleging the government had "sexed up" intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

While the Hutton Inquiry ruled his death suicide, the investigation was criticised for avoiding a proper inquest and sealing post-mortem records until 2073. Medical experts and politicians including Norman Baker MP argued the evidence did not support suicide, noting the unusual method of death and lack of blood at the scene.

The Government Hid Colonial Torture For 40 Years

When elderly Kenyans brought legal claims for colonial-era torture, the government insisted relevant documents had been destroyed or transferred to Kenya decades earlier. This position collapsed dramatically in 2011 when lawyers discovered the "migrated archives" at Hanslope Park—a secret government repository containing thousands of files from former colonies.

These documents detailed systematic torture, castration, and murder during the Mau Mau uprising, operations explicitly authorised by colonial officials. The files had been deliberately hidden to avoid accountability, and their discovery forced the government to pay compensation and issue formal apologies.

MI5/MI6 Sent British Citizens To CIA Torture

Following 9/11, MI5 and MI6 systematically facilitated the CIA's extraordinary rendition programme, providing intelligence that led to the kidnapping, torture, and indefinite detention of British residents and foreign nationals. Court documents revealed MI5 officers interrogated Binyam Mohamed while knowing he was being tortured in Pakistan, then watched as he was rendered to Morocco where CIA agents participated in his torture over eighteen months. In 2004, MI6's counter-terrorism chief Mark Allen sent a fax to Gaddafi's intelligence chief congratulating him on the "safe arrival" of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife after MI6 provided the tip-off that led to their kidnapping in Thailand and subsequent torture in Libya.

The 2010 Court of Appeal ruling established British intelligence services were "complicit" in torture, with agencies sharing information while knowing detainees faced "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment." After years of legal battles, the government finally apologised in 2018, paying £500,000 compensation to Belhaj's wife whilst carefully avoiding any "admission of liability." The scandal directly contributed to the 2021 Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act, which retrospectively legalised criminal conduct by agents—effectively providing state operatives with immunity from prosecution for actions including torture.