United Kingdom (UK)

Occupy Democracy Protests In London Parliament Square

November 22, 2014 Chris Richards, www.mirror.co.uk Resist! Democracy, Occupy Democracy, United Kingdom (UK)

Pro-democracy protesters descended on central London tonight as the Occupy movement gathered to set up camp outside Parliament. Organisers called for supporters to "return to Parliament Square" outside the Palace of Westminster from 6pm until late on Sunday. Police have warned protesters they are banned from setting up camp at the landmark, as Scotland Yard insisted it had "an appropriate and proportionate police plan in place" for the event. Dozens of officers were stationed in front of fencing placed around Parliament Square which prevented people from accessing the site.

Police Move To Clear Occupy Protesters From Parliament Square

October 20, 2014 Chris Johnston, www.theguardian.com Resist! Democracy, Occupy, Protests, United Kingdom (UK)

Police made one arrest after hundreds of officers converged on Parliament Square in London on Sunday night in an attempt to remove Occupy Democracy protesters. A Metropolitan police spokesman said that officers were enforcing a notice to desist. The demonstrators, who were in the third day of occupying the square, were given 30 minutes to leave or face arrest. Possessing items that could be used for sleeping in Parliament Square was made illegal under the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. One protester used a smartphone to send a live video stream of the eviction to the Bambuser website as others condemned the police action on social media. An Occupy spokeswoman described the police action as “absolutely crazy”. She said offficers told them that they could not sit on tarpaulins, which were deemed to be “structures”.

UK Passes Symbolic Motion To Recognise Palestine

October 14, 2014 William James, www.news.yahoo.com Organize! Israel, Law, Palestine, United Kingdom (UK)

LONDON (Reuters) - British lawmakers voted in favour of recognising Palestine as a state on Monday in a move which will not alter the government's stance on the issue, but which carries symbolic value for Palestinians in their pursuit of international recognition. Britain does not classify Palestine as a state, but says it could do so at any time if it believed it would help peace efforts between the Palestinians and Israel. Prime Minister David Cameron abstained from the vote, which was called by an opposition lawmaker, and Cameron's spokesman earlier said that foreign policy would not be affected whatever the outcome.

UK Prime Minister Warned Air Strikes In Syria Illegal

September 18, 2014 Andrew Grice, www.independent.co.uk Educate! ISIS, United Kingdom (UK), Wars and Militarism

David Cameron has been warned that UK air strikes against Isis in Syria could be illegal under international law. Officials in the House of Commons Library have cast doubt on the Prime Minister’s view that Isis targets could be bombed in Syria as well as Iraq on the grounds that the Assad regime in Syria is “illegitimate.” In a briefing paper for MPs, officials said: “Action in Syria will be difficult to justify legally without a request for assistance from the Assad government, and it is unlikely that the West could be seen to be responding to such a request. “The British Government has said that any action in Syria will comply with international law, and the most likely way to achieve this would be to claim that military action is for humanitarian purposes, using the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. This remains controversial, however, without a United Nations Security Council resolution to authorise it.”

Privatization Of British Health System Fuels Scottish Independence

September 14, 2014 Staff, www.rt.com Organize! Britain, Healthcare, Scotland, Single-Payer, United Kingdom (UK)

Politicians clashed over the NHS at a Scottish independence debate. “Yes” supporters say independence could save the health service from privatization, while “No” advocates say Scotland can’t afford it alone. Independence is needed to protect against a “nasty, competitive, profit-driven motive” towards the NHS, Scottish Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie said Thursday. Respect MP George Galloway, who is calling for a “No” vote, however, says there would not be an NHS without “a country big enough” to share resources. The debate was held at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro arena before an audience of around 7,500 young people, drawn from secondary schools across Scotland. The 18th September referendum will be the first time 16 and 17 year olds have been entitled to vote. Support for independence is highest among the younger population. Both sides in the referendum race hold strong emotional attachments to the NHS.

British Jihadists To Be Forced To Attend Deradicalisation Programmes

September 3, 2014 Tom Whitehead, www.telegraph.co.uk Educate! ISIL, Islam, Terrorism, United Kingdom (UK)

British jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria will be forced to attend “deradicalisation” programmes to reverse their warped brainwashing, David Cameron announced. Dangerous fanatics made subject to court controls will be ordered to engage in anti-extremism schemes as part of a raft of new measures to combat the risk of British Islamists returning to the UK. The move comes amid growing concern over the threat posed by Britons who have joined the terror group Isil in Syria and Iraq. At least 500 are believed to have travelled out and half are now back on the streets of the UK, with some feared potentially plotting attacks here. In a Commons statement, Mr Cameron said: “Adhering to British values is not an option or a choice. “It is a duty for all those who live in these islands so we will stand up for our values, we will in the end defeat this extremism and we will secure our way of life for generations to come." Under the proposals, any terror suspect placed under a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (Tpims) will now be forced to engage in the Government’s Prevent programme, which tackles radicalisation.

Resistance To Fracking Escalates In UK With Action Camp

August 19, 2014 No Dash For Gas, www.nodashforgas.org.uk Resist! Direct Action, Fracking, United Kingdom (UK)

Today campaigners from across the UK occupied DEFRA, blockaded IGas, superglued themselves in front of a live fracking site in Hull, shut down a Swansea University campus, took over Cuadrilla’s Northern HQ, dropped banners in Salford and at Blackpool college, visited Lancashire councillors houses and Total Environmental Technology, dropped Radium balls in Lytham, shut down PPS (Cuadrilla’s PR firm) and staged a die-in at HSBC in an unprecedented stand against the fracking industry. They also staged some spoof actions posing as the estate agency ‘Frackstons’ and Cuadrilla’s communications manager in a lively and creative day of direct action. Some details of the actions are below – photos are available here and for more details of all the actions listed below as well as other actions which took place today, head here. Why did we do this? Campaigners are working together to protect their homes and the environment after the Conservative Government announced that over 50% of the UK would be opened up to fracking. The action has today been taken to put a stop to an industry which would further tie the UK into an unsusatinable and unjust energy system which will propel us into catastrophic climate change and allowed over 30,000 people to die from fuel poverty last year. It also aims to highlight the need to create a democratic, community controlled energy system as an alternative to the Big Six’s corporate power.

Foreign Minister Quits Over UK Israeli Policy

August 7, 2014 The Telegraph, www.telegraph.co.uk Resist! Gaza, Israel, Politics, United Kingdom (UK)

Baroness Warsi, the senior Foreign Office minister, and Britain's first female Muslim member of the Cabinet, announced her resignation from the Government over Britain's policy on Gaza this morning, saying it is "morally indefensible". Lady Warsi's resignation appeared to have caught No 10 by surprise, with Prime Minister David Cameron currently out of the country on holiday. She wrote in her resignation letter: "My view has been that our policy in relation to the Middle East peace process generally but more recently our approach and language during the current crisis in Gaza is morally indefensible, is not in Britain's national interest and will have a long-term detrimental impact on our reputation internationally and domestically." It comes amid growing unease among some Conservative MPs that the Government has failed to take a firmer line with Israel over its incursion into Gaza in the face of mounting Palestinian casualties. The Telegraph's Tim Stanley said her resignation is "very significant" partly because she is the first member of parliament to step down over a foreign policy point of principle since 2003, despite the UK's at times contentious stance on issues such as arms sales, Syria or Libya in the decade that followed. But it is also significant he said because he thinks "It will spark a debate about the UK's relationship with Israel."

UK Attempting To ‘Censor’ Senate Torture Report

August 5, 2014 Reprieve, www.reprieve.org.uk Educate! Censorship, CIA, Torture, United Kingdom (UK)

The British Government has admitted that it has “made representations” to the US concerning the release of material in a major forthcoming Senate report concerning the CIA’s torture and rendition programme. The admission, contained in a letter from former Foreign Secretary William Hague to legal charity Reprieve, has led to accusations that the UK is seeking to “censor” the contents of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report, which is currently undergoing a lengthy declassification process before its expected publication in the coming days. In the letter, received by Reprieve in July, Mr Hague states that “We have made representations to seek assurance that ordinary procedures for clearance of UK material will be followed in the event that UK material provide [sic] to the Senate Committee were to be disclosed.” The admission marks a change of tack from the Government: ministers had previously told Parliament when questioned about their role in the declassification process that “The release of the Committee’s report is a matter for the United States.” The admission has led to concerns being raised by Reprieve that the UK Government is attempting to “censor” the report in order to cover up embarrassing details. The concerns have been given weight by a series of recent leaks concerning the contents of the report, which allege that it contains information regarding the use by the CIA of the British territory of Diego Garcia to secretly detain prisoners.

Britain Strikes For A Day

July 13, 2014 Sheila Cohen, www.labornotes.org Resist! General Strike, Labor, Unions, United Kingdom (UK)

It’s finally happened. The rusty machinery of the British trade union movement has turned—sluggishly—to allow us a magnificent day of rank-and-file protest. Only one day of striking, when there should be so many. Yesterday hundreds of thousands of public sector workers “took a day off” the length and breadth of Britain to protest not only their poverty pay (already low-paid, they have now been denied anything more than a 1 percent increase since 2010), the loss of 400,000 public sector jobs in the same period, and pension losses. Support from the National Union of Teachers meant the closure of schools across the country. Civil Service strikes closed government offices and even national art galleries.

Mass Public Sector Walk-Out In England

July 11, 2014 Natasha Culzac, www.independent.co.uk Resist! Education, Labor, Strike, Teachers, Unions, United Kingdom (UK)

Tens of thousands of teachers are walking out of the classroom today in protest against pay, workload pressures and pension changes as the Coalition government downplays the extent of the strike. As many as one million public sector workers are staging industrial action, with health workers and civil servants joining teachers in a mass demonstration against austerity measures. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) says more than 20,000 teachers could take part, with nationwide rallies and pickets planned for towns and cities ranging from Cambridge, Leicester, Swansea, Torquay and the Isle of Wight. The strike has been condemned by the Department of Education (DfE) as disrupting to pupils’ education and harming the reputation of the teaching profession, while the government said that it actually expects most schools to open their doors. A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “The vast majority of dedicated public sector workers did not vote for today's action, and early indications are that most are turning up for work as usual.

Cameron Plans Strike Crackdown On 1 Million Public Workers

July 10, 2014 Patrick Wintour and Matthew Taylor, www.theguardian.com Organize! Children, Education, Labor, Unions, United Kingdom (UK)

David Cameron has been accused by union leaders of being a "Bullingdon bully" after he vowed that the Conservative election manifesto would tighten the screw on strike laws in response to what he regards as Thursday's illegitimate mass walkout of up to 1 million public-sector workers. Cameron attacked the low turnout thresholds in union strike ballots and challenged the validity of mandates to take industrial action derived from ballots conducted more than a year ago in some cases. The prime minister said: "I think the time has come for setting a threshold. It is time to legislate and it will be in the Conservative manifesto." In a sign of how the political battle may unfold, the education secretary, Michael Gove, will accuse the teaching unions of not standing up for education but for their pay and pensions. On Newsnight on Thursday, Gove said teachers who were joining the strike were a minority.

Victory For Campaign To Protect The Bees

July 5, 2014 Tom Revell, www.blueandgreentomorrow.com Resist! Bees, Environment, Food and Agriculture, United Kingdom (UK)

The agri-business giant Syngenta has withdrawn its controversial application to use a banned pesticide in the UK, after campaigners warned that the chemical could have a devastating impact on threatened bee populations. The chemical in question is a type of neonicotinoid – a class of pesticides banned across the European Union for two years from December 2013. Though they are prohibited for their impact on essential pollinator species, including shrinking bee populations, the UK can allow the use of neonicotinoids in “emergency circumstances.” Therefore, Syngenta applied for an exemption to use neonicotinoids on oilseed rape across the UK – claiming it was the only way to protect 186,000 hectares of crops. The government – which had opposed the EU ban – had been expected to give its ruling on Tuesday. Though that did not arrive, Syngenta has now decided to withdraw its appeal. The firm said it was now too late to supply the pesticide to British farmers for this year’s crops, but said they would apply for another emergency exemption in 2015. Environmentalists have welcomed the news, after the government came under heavy pressure to reject Syngenta’s appeal.

Protests Seek To Occupy Westminster Abbey Over Cuts To Disabled

June 30, 2014 Huffington Post UK, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk Resist! Austerity, Disabilities, Occupy, Protest, United Kingdom (UK)

Campaigners have tried to occupy the grounds of Westminster Abbey in protest against the Government's decision to axe a fund for the disabled. The move, reminsicent of the long protest occupation at St Paul's Cathedral in 2011, saw at least ten police vans were part of a heavy police presence, with officers at times three rows deep to deal with around 100 protesters. The Guardian reported the protestors had planned to occupy the space until July 22 but the police presence caused the number of protestors to dwindle to around 50. The BBC reported that the protest ended at around 9pm on Saturday. The group had sent a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, urging the Church of England not to forcibly remove them, The Guardian reported. Tents were erected on the grass and draped with banners against the planned closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) for severely disabled people. Protesters claimed their attempts to negotiate their presence on the Abbey's grounds with the Dean of Westminster, Dr John Hall, had been rejected and they had been advised by police to leave the grounds or face arrest. Many moved on but a group of disabled protesters, many in wheelchairs, stayed on to continue the protest.

Man Arrested, Vikings Invade British Museum

June 16, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Resist! Arts, BP, Creative Resistance, Protest, United Kingdom (UK)

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org Around 200 people – many dressed as Vikings – create mobile longship in Great Court of Museum in vocal performance protest Today, hundreds of people invaded the British Museum to stage a Viking “flash-horde”, complete with a 15-metre longship. The performance was organized by theatrical protest group “BP or nor BP?” in protest at BP’s sponsorship of the Museum’s popular Vikings exhibition. Around 200 people, many of them dressed as Vikings, gathered in the Great Court of the Museum at 3.15pm. Several actors were prevented from entering the building by security, but the vast majority of participants entered without a problem, despite bag searches by security leading to long queues outside the Museum. One man, who was carrying a cardboard Viking shield painted with a large BP logo, had his shield confiscated by security guards outside the Museum. Several witnesses describe how he handed the shield over calmly, but was then approached by several police officers who told him he was breaching the peace. He asked, calmly, what exactly he was doing to breach the peace; he was simply standing quietly in a queue. Two officers then grabbed him, pushed him against a wall and arrested him without explaining exactly what offence he had allegedly committed. An observer asked the arresting officer to give his name, but the officer refused. One witness described the event as “clearly an unlawful arrest”. The man was held for a few hours and released without charge. The group have held a large number of theatrical protests in the past, including six at the British Museum. None have ever resulted in arrests before.

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