Declassified UK

Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s first democratically elected prime minister, in 1953 with the help of the CIA. They replaced him with the Shah, an autocrat protected by his infamous secret police, Savak. A few years later, MI6 conspired with the CIA to overthrow, even assassinate, Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically […]

Fifty years ago, US troops began building a military base on the Chagos Islands, a British territory in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Its inhabitants, who numbered several thousand, were forcibly removed to make way for a naval station.  They received almost nothing in compensation for the loss of their homeland, but Britain did […]

The UK Foreign Office has spent around £24 million since 2013 assisting an armed police squad in Somalia whose counter-terrorism operations are shrouded in secrecy. Funding for Somalia’s Goodir Unit is intended to stop attacks by Al Shabab, the Al Qaeda-linked militant group in East Africa that claims to have recruited British Somalis from London, […]

Harry Kane has just scored a late goal, confirming England’s win over Germany in this summer’s Euros. We are sat under a marquee outside a pub near a main road in the nondescript village of Warton, Lancashire.  One of the punters stands up, lifting his Jägerbomb high into the air. “There were ten German bombers […]

The British embassy in Bogotá is financing a new public relations campaign to “improve perceptions” of the UK in Colombia, Declassified can reveal. The project has been launched while the UK is supporting the repressive Colombian security forces. According to Foreign Office documents released to Declassified, the UK embassy spent £6,000 in 2019-20 to conduct […]

Britain supported a €30 million European Union aid package for an armed police unit in Mali that has since killed 14 protesters, Declassified has found. Foreign Office staff “overrode parliamentary scrutiny” to approve an aid deal that would benefit the unit in December 2017 – 18 months after the Brexit vote. Alan Duncan, who was […]

Gavin Williamson claimed in 2018 when he was Britain’s defence secretary that the MOD had a new “Defence Arctic Strategy” that was already being followed by the navy. “Russia, with more submarines operating under the ice and ambitions to build over 100 facilities in the Arctic, are staking a claim and militarising the region,” he […]

Three loyalist gunmen, from a vantage point over the motorway leading north out of Belfast, open fire on a van they think is taking Catholic workmen home to County Donegal. A bullet goes straight through the heart of a 16-year-old boy sitting next to his brother in the front seat. The murder weapon, a sub-machine […]

The City of London Corporation is the municipal governing body of the City of London, where Britain’s financial interests are overwhelmingly located. Its primary function is to represent Britain’s financial services and banks at home and abroad.  The Corporation recently blocked Declassified’s request for the release of information about the foreign schedule of its leader, […]

“Could you explain more about the kind of techniques you used to create psychological conflict?” Colin Wallace, aged 77 years of age, suddenly pauses. He considers his next words carefully. “I have to be careful with that…,” he finally says in a thick Northern Irish accent.  “What I don’t want to do is actually share […]