METROPOLITAN POLICE apologies over unethical undercovers sleeping with activists were welcomed by Unite yesterday — but the construction union said top cops should come clean over alleged links to mass industry blacklisting.

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: “At long last, we are arriving at the truth regarding the disturbing scale of these covert activities and an acceptance that there was an organised and appalling misuse of police officers to spy on UK citizens.

“We have long been concerned that this misuse of the police extended to the workplace, where ‘rogue’ employers developed a blacklist of construction workers and others who were union members.

Met links to the 1993-2009 Consulting Association (CA) blacklist, which affected at least 3,213 people and potentially tens of thousands, were revealed last year by the firm’s chief officer Ian Kerr.

Mr Kerr, also a former employee of CA precursor the Economic League, told a Scottish affairs select committee inquiry last year that the League and Met had shared information.

“Our darkest fears were confirmed by the industry itself last year that blacklists of employees were compiled with police assistance,” Ms Cartmail said.

“It is therefore vital that the Metropolitan Police fully acknowledges its connivance in the ‘blacklisting’ operation in order that we can both clean up current-day problems and then move swiftly to full justice and compensation for those men and women who were denied a livelihood simply because they were members of a union or active in a cause.”