ANTI-BLACKLISTING campaigners called yesterday for a leading role in a public inquiry into covert police involvement in the targeting of trade union and political activists.

The inquiry by Lord Justice Pitchford was ordered by Home Secretary Teresa May after a police whistleblower exposed the activities of undercover police in spying on trade unionists and other activists.

Now the Blacklist Support Group (BSG), a justice campaign and support network for blacklisting victims in construction, is applying to the Home Office for “core participant” status in the inquiry.

“We will be able to guarantee that spying on trade unions and passing over information to private companies becomes a theme within the Pitchford inquiry,” said BSG secretary Dave Smith, himself a victim of police surveillance.

“Police and security services spying on trade unions is not a one-off aberration, it is standard operating procedure by the state.”

As a core participant the BSG would be among parties entitled to submit views on the inquiry’s remit and to see evidence before it enters the public domain.

Whistleblower Peter Francis, a former undercover police officer, exposed undercover officers’ infiltration of trade unions and campaign groups, including environmentalists.

Some officers formed close personal and sexual relationships with campaigners and passed information, including the names of activists, to businesses via the notorious Consulting Association.

Before its exposure by government investigators in 2009, the firm passed the names of more than 3,000 construction industry workers to employers.

BSG is urging unions and organisations known to have been infiltrated to make a joint submission to the inquiry.