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Occupy Gandhi – stop fossil fuel criminals – Parliament Square – 2015

Occupy Gandhi – stop fossil fuel criminals: Monday 4th May 2015 was the third day of Occupy Democracy’s 10 day ‘Festival of Democracy‘ in Parliament Square “building a movement for real democracy: free from corporate control, working for people and planet!“

I arrived in time for the meditation in front of the statue of Gandhi, noted for his direct action civil disobedience, which called for fossil fuel exploration and investment to be made a crime.

Blue tarpaulins had become a symbol of protest by the Occupy movement worldwide, and particularly in Parliament Square where the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 had allowed police to seize tents and anything else “adapted, (solely or mainly) for the purpose of facilitating sleeping or staying in a place for any period” and there had been many battles between police and protesters over the seizing of blue tarps.

Donnachadh McCarthy spoke at the start of the rally and tarps were put into placeon the paved area in front of the statue of Gandhi. Occupy protesters then sat on them in a circle with others standing around and watching.

At the centre of the circle was a blue tarp with the message ‘CRIMINALISE FOSSIL FUEL EXPLORATION’ and there were some short speeches and a time for meditations, during one of which Donnachadh and another person leading the event got up and wrapped a blue tarpaulin around Gandhi.

Heritage wardens came and asked for the tarp to be removed, but were ignored and they then removed it themselves.

Two protesters than brought up a another tarp, putting it around Gandhi but taking care – at least until the wardens moved a little away – not to letting it actually touch the statue.

At the end of the meditation, Donnachadh announced an act of civil disobedience and pulled a folding tent onto the tarpaulin on the pavement in front of him and erected it. Several people then came and sat inside it, and the protest continued around the tent with Donnachadh joining the others inside.

Heritage wardens talked with police and after around half an hour a few police officers came to tell those in the tent they were committing an offence and might be arrested if they failed to leave. The police then walked away.

The protest continued and twelve minutes later as Big Ben was striking for 2pm a group of around 20 police marched in and surrounded the tent. Donnachadh had been standing in front of it but quickly jumped back in as they arrived.

Those inside the tent were told they would be arrested unless they left immediately. With officers surrounding the tent it was had to see or photograph what was happening, but only three remained.

Police then went inside the tent where the protesters had linked arms around each other and slowly managed to drag them out, one by one.

When Donnachadh was dragged out and carried away to a police van he was still shouting against fossil fuels. After the police had pulled out the final protester and the torn and broken remains of the tent the protest continued around the statue of Gandhi, but many including myself soon left.

Many more pictures, particularly of the final scened when police surrounded the tent and dragged Donnachadh away on My London Diary at Occupy Gandhi – stop fossil fuel criminals.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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XR Zombie System Collapse Action – 30 Oct 2024

XR Zombie System Collapse Action: On Wednesday 30th October I returned to Trinity Square Garden to cover the third day and final day of Extinction Rebellion’s actions demanding the insurance industry end their support of new fossil fuel projects – part of a week of world-wide action, including protests the following two days in other UK cities. I’d missed Day 2 where they had marched with a giant potato.

XR had posted: “We Predict a Riot – mass action…..a zombie apocalypse! A wide range of creative actions will highlight what social collapse will look like in the UK as the population begins to panic in the face of repeated floods and food shortages over the next decade.”

And we had been promised a “Zombie die-in with flashmob, zombie insurers stumbling around” as well as a “Zombie Mass Dance Discobedience – This is the undead dance for life! – wear business suits with a zombie twist. We are the undead, dancing our way through the halls of power to expose the profiteers of destruction!”

I arrived to find a group of around 20 people practising the Zombie dance in Trinity Square, and a giant bomb of CO2 with protesters in business suits holding red boxes with the words WAR, FAMINE, EXTINCTION and FLOOD and a man reading a special copy of the ‘Daily Fail’.

Eventually the several hundred protesters set off on a march heading to Tower Palce, the home of insurers MarshMcLennan, where there was loud music from the Samba band, a short speech calling on them to end the insuring of new fossil fuel projects, a die-in, a few zombies runnning around and then the Zombie Mass Dance Discobedience.

*Reading The Crimes outside insurers MarshMcLennan*

Next stop was insurers AIG where a small group went inside the building to deliver a letter, but were soon ushered out.

The march continued around the City, before stopping for a lunch break outside the Howden Group offices on the corner with Bevis Marks.

After lunch the march continued, going back past Lloyds and on to the Sky Garden building in Fenchurch St, home to home to insurers Ascot, Talbot, Chaucer, Markel, Allied World, CNA Hardy, Tokio Marine Kiln, Sirius International and Lancashire Syndicates.

Here a small group had arrived before us to poster the windows with large signs, ‘INSURING FOSSIL FUELS = CLIMATE CHAOS’ and three campaigners were perched on top of the main entrance porch.

I’d been on my feet too long and things seemed to be at an end, so I sloped off for a pint of Brains (it was Halloween) in the Crosse Keys before making my way home. You can read about the protest in a press release from XR, and see more of my pictures here.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words 2008

Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words: In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and other women who believed that more direct action was needed to get votes for women founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) with the motto ‘Deeds not words‘.

In September 1908 together with Christabel Pankhurst and Flora Drummond, Emmeline Pankhurst issued a leaflet with the message:

Men and Women,
Help the Suffragettes to Rush the House of Commons,
on
Tuesday Evening, October 13th, at 7.30.

The three women were charged for this with inciting the public to undertake an illegal act. After speaking at a public meeting on 11th October they were instructed to attend Bow Street police station but defied this and a second request to report to police. They were arrested at 6pm on the 13th and so were unable to attend the Suffragette Rush they had called.

But despite this, 60,000 people came to Parliament Square and some attempts were made to rush through the 5,000 police cordon but failed. “Thirty-seven arrests were made, ten people were taken to hospital and seven police officers were placed on the sick list as a result of their injuries.”

One woman, MP Keir Hardie’s secretary, was working inside the building and ran into the chamber where MPs were debating, shouting ‘leave off discussing the children’s question and give votes to women first’ before being forcibly evicted.

The three leaders were tried and fined for conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace and sent to Holloway when they refused to pay their fines.

On 13th October 2008, the 100th anniversary of this Suffragette Rush, as I wrote, ‘women concerned with the lack of political action to tackle climate change organised and led a rally in Parliament Square, again calling for “men and women alike” to stand together.’

They were making three key demands – “no airport expansion“, “no new coal-fired power stations” and “The creation of policy in line with the most recent climate science and research.”

So far the repeated demands by Heathrow to expand have been resisted, but only by continued protests and helped by financial problems. But expansion remained Tory policy and having ruled it out set up a biased inquiry to reinstate it. The new Labour government has already shown support for expansion at London City Airport and seems likely to support new proposals at Heathrow.

Although the last coal-fired power station closed a few weeks ago, we now have an even more polluting and environmentally damaging wood-fired power station at Drax, which ridiculously receives green subsidies which in 2020 amounted to £832 million as well as “exemptions for taxes on carbon emissions, estimated at savings of £358 million“.

And although successive governments had paid lip-service to “the most recent climate science and research“, their actions and actual policies continue to show any of the urgency that this requires.

On 13th October 2008, the event began with a rally in Parliament Square with rather fewer attending than in 1908, around a thousand including many wearing white and dressing in the styles of a century earlier.

As the final speech by Green Party MEP and leader Caroline Lucas ended, “most of the crowd, led by Tamsin Omond and friends, walked and ran across the road towards the main door into Parliament, chanting the Suffragette slogan ‘Deeds Not Words’. Police “made only a token attempt to stop them on their way, falling back to protect the door itself with several lines of police, and preventing any protesters entering the building.“

“There was a long melee outside the door, with police picking up demonstrators and throwing them back. I saw no violence by demonstrators towards the police.” Eventually the whole area in front of the door was crowded with protesters and police held them to a standstill.

By the time I left around half an hour later a few people were also beginning to drift away. “Later I heard that around half a dozen people had been arrested, including Tamsin Omond, who was in breach of her bail conditions following the ‘Plane Stupid’ roof-top protest at the Houses of Parliament in February.”

You can read more about the protest in my account on My London Diary, which also has many more pictures: Climate Rush – Deeds Not Words.

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Extinction Rebellion Climate Protest 2018

Protesters in Parliament Square on 31st October 2018 heard speeches from climate activists including Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, campaigner Donnachadh McCarthy, Labour MP Clive Lewis, economist and Green MEP Molly Scott Cato, before making a ‘Declaration of Rebellion’ against the British Government for its criminal inaction in the face of climate change catastrophe and ecological collapse.

Three years ago British campaigners were particularly inflamed by the almost total lack of any measures in the budget to meet the impending catastrophic climate change, and three years later we can say the same about last week’s budget. Sunak still seems to be intent on growth and business as usual, encouraging road building and air travel and there was little or no mention of any green initiatives, something of a pre-COP26 sabotage of stated government policies.

But as Thunberg and others made clear, we have seen some rhetoric but totally inadequate action so far to meet the challenge and the Extinction Rebellion protest made this clear in its ‘Declaration of Rebellion’ against the British Government for its criminal inaction in the face of climate change catastrophe and ecological collapse.

Schoolkids get it – and it led to Greta’s protest outside the Swedish Parliament which has inspired many around the world. Even some of our media are beginning to get it, but governments around the world, including our own seem reluctant to actually make the kind of changes that are needed. And although some MPs speak out, neither Labour nor Conservative parties have embraced the kind of policies that are necessary to avert mass extinction.

Its a shame that many on the left have devoted rather more energy to criticising the actions taken by Extinction Rebellion rather than getting out and doing something positive, with few others organising protests and direct actions. XR have done a lot to raise public awareness and the vicious reaction to their protests with the government pushing prosecutions against them and a draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill currently in its final stages in Parliament , and threats to rewrite the Human Rights Act and to hobble judges have shown the true colour of our Tory government as we move towards a police state.

After reciting the ‘Declaration of Rebellion’ the protesters moved onto the road and sat down to block it and continue the rally with songs, poems and speeches, including by Caroline Lucas MP and George Monbiot. There were several votes during the sit-down when protesters were asked if they wished to leave the roadway as police were threatening to arrest them which resulted in a near-unanimous show of hands in favour of remaining.

As George Monbiot finished some of the protesters began to leave, and several activists stood up to encourage people to stay behind on the road and be arrested, and several groups continued the protest, including one circle with protesters linking arms including Donnachadh McCarthy and George Monbiot. Police surrounded the group, and then arrested the man to McCarthy’s left, coming back a few minutes later to take McCarthy away – and he later published an account of what appeared to be a symposium on climate change he conducted in the police van. Monbiot shortly after got up and left, apologising to those remaining that he needed to collect his children from school.

The arrests continued slowly, and there was still a group on one side of the road who had been locked together for some hours who police seemed to be largely ignoring and were still there when I left, along with others still sitting on the road.

I have low expectations for next week’s COP 26. We will get more promises to add to those which have already not been kept and not the real shift into action that the world desperately needs. Of course I’d be delighted to be proved wrong. But this side of a revolution I think it unlikely that the ultra-rich can be persuaded to change their ways.

Many more pictures at:
Extinction Rebellion roadblock
Extinction Rebellion rally