Above Photo: Mark Field has been suspended as an MP (Picture: BBC/PA Wire)
Note: Mark Field has been suspended for his manhandling of a Greenpeace climate protester. Field is a Conservative lawmaker for the wealthy districts for the Cities of London and Westminster since 2001. His portfolio as a Foreign Office minister includes climate change.
Field was caught on video when he jumped from his seat and grabbed a protester, Janet Barker of Wales. Barker was wearing a red gown, as she and other climate activists flooded the room where the chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, was delivering his annual address on the state of the economy. Barker was grimacing and shouting, “It’s a peaceful protest,” while she was grabbed by Field.
Hannah Martin, a Greenpeace activist, posted on Twitter: “There’s nothing like a female led peaceful protest to bring out the true character of an entitled man.”
Field apologized but described the protest as “a major security breach.” KZ
Green Party MP and a leading supporter of the People’s Vote campaign
‘Climate change will be the biggest challenge to global security over the next few decades and we must tackle it together.’ Not my words – but those of foreign office minister Mark Field. Now we know what his idea of tackling it together is: grabbing Janet Barker, a peaceful young woman protester, by the neck and brutally frog-marching her out of the room.
This is a minister who also tweeted only last month: ‘The UK remains committed to helping women all over the world to feel safe and protected in the work they do, so they can speak freely and be part of the change we all want.’
A commitment which clearly doesn’t apply to women in Britain.
A few Conservative MPs have disgracefully come to Mr Field’s defence, putting his actions in the context of the aggressive and sometimes threatening behaviour towards MPs, both online and outside the Houses of Parliament.
There is no comparison between the two.
This was clearly a peaceful protest. The women protesters were all wearing long red evening dresses, with sashes identifying them as climate protesters from Greenpeace. They posed no threat to the Mansion House diners. Yet they were greeted with violence by Mark Field and – later – disdain by the chancellor, Philip Hammond.
Mr Hammond’s complacent claim, when he resumed his speech, that Britain was actually leading the world by declaring a target of net zero emissions by 2050, is meaningless when his whole speech said nothing about the climate emergency, nor did it come up with any proposals on how to tackle it.
The purpose of Greenpeace’s peaceful protest was to highlight that glaring omission, not only in the chancellor’s speech but in the government’s whole climate change policy.
Acknowledging a climate emergency and setting a target of net zero emissions by 2050 doesn’t change the science or the urgency with which we need to act. If the house is on fire, the flames need to be put out: it’s not enough just to say ‘oh dear, it’s getting warmer’.
That means business as usual is not an option. Giving tax breaks to fossil fuel companies is not an option. Using UK export finance schemes to fund fossil fuel projects in developing countries is not an option. Planning new aviation expansion is not an option. Continuing with an economic model based on infinite consumption of the world’s resources is not an option.
Earlier this week, the head of the Environment Agency warned that we all need to wake up to the climate emergency and its implications: that in Britain we may not have enough water in 20 years’ time, and that parts of the country could be uninhabitable within a few decades because of rising sea levels and coastal erosion, while much of the rest of the country risks being constantly threatened by flooding.
This is the emergency that needs our urgent response, one that overwhelms all other challenges facing us.
If Mark Field cannot respond constructively when faced with Greenpeace activists trying to deliver the truth, one wonders how he is going to cope when confronted with the harsh realities of the climate crisis.