Priti Patel

Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel Has Ties to Group Behind ‘Extreme’ Trump Agenda

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Original article by Sam Bright and Adam Barnett republished from DeSmog.

Conservative MP Priti Patel speaking at the Heritage Foundation in 2021. Credit: GB News / Facebook

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint proposes sweeping anti-climate policies.

New Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel earlier this year welcomed into Parliament a radical U.S. organisation behind Donald Trump’s hard-right plan for a second term as president. 

As reported by DeSmog, Conservative MP Patel met with Kevin Roberts and Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation in March, praising the pair on her Facebook page as “our friends across the pond” who stand for “Conservative values and beliefs at home and abroad”. 

Roberts is the president of the Heritage Foundation, while Gardiner is the director of its ‘Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom’. 

The Heritage Foundation is an ultra-conservative group that authored the controversial Project 2025 blueprint for a second Donald Trump term, which proposes a range of radical anti-climate policies, including slashing restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrapping investment in renewable energy, and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Project 2025 has been accused of being “extreme” and “authoritarian” for setting out a plan to rapidly “reform” the U.S. government by shuttering bureaus and offices, overturning regulations, and replacing thousands of public sector employees with hand-picked political allies of Trump. The agenda also proposes radical tax cuts, and a crackdown on reproductive rights. 

On Wednesday (6 November), following Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, Roberts sent an email on behalf of the foundation, saying that: “starting now, we will execute our plans to dismantle the administrative state.” 

At least 140 authors of Project 2025 worked for the last Trump administration, according to CNN, while several are expected to hold positions in the next Trump White House.

Patel also gave a speech about national security to the Heritage Foundation, hosted by Gardiner, in November 2021. Patel was at the time serving as home secretary, and her address was published on the UK government website. 

This news comes as the Conservative Party realigns itself after the election of new leader Kemi Badenoch, positioning itself as having better relations with the incoming Trump administration. 

In her first Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) this week, Badenoch called on Labour not to oppose a Trump address to Parliament, and asked whether Foreign Secretary David Lammy had apologised to the Republican for labelling him as a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” in 2020.

Patel was appointed to Badenoch’s new shadow cabinet earlier this week, alongside Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick, who also has ties to the Heritage Foundation. 

In February, Jenrick – who came second in the recent Tory leadership election – gave a speech to the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC entitled, “Securing Sovereign Borders in an Age of Mass Migration”.

Project 2025 proposes new sweeping restrictions on immigration into the U.S., while setting the foundations for mass deportations – a key promise of Trump’s 2024 campaign. 

After being introduced by Roberts, Jenrick praised the foundation, and described meeting with and learning from Heritage while working as an intern for Condoleeza Rice, who served as secretary of state under Republican President George W. Bush. 

Jenrick also praised the event’s co-host Gardiner, whom Jenrick described as “the special relationship made flesh”. He said Gardiner, who writes a regular column for the Daily Telegraph, “creates links between conservatives here and in the UK”. 

As revealed by Democracy For Sale and Byline Times, Donald Trump and U.S. Republican campaigns received more than $45 million (£35 million) from donors who have funded the influential network of hard-wing Tufton Street think tanks in the UK. 

“That senior Conservatives would take time out to travel halfway around the world to give talks at a pro-Trump think tanks is very revealing,” said Peter Geoghegan, editor of Democracy For Sale. “We need to be aware that the dark money that fuelled the likes of the Heritage Foundation is washing up in Britain, where secretive Tufton Street think tanks refuse to declare their donors but take millions from pro-Trump U.S. conservatives.”

A Heritage Foundation spokesperson previously told DeSmog: “Project 2025 is a coalition of conservatives who wrote ‘Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise’ which was published in April 2023, before any candidate declared a run for office. Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign.”

Project 2025 and Climate Denial

Project 2025 proposes replacing green investment with the further deregulation of the oil and gas industry. 

Speaking at an event co-hosted by the Heritage Foundation and the Hungarian Danube Institute in September, key Trump ally Robert Wilkie – who served as U.S. veterans’ affairs secretary from 2018 to 2021 – confirmed that his former boss would “kill” climate budgets. 

The Heritage Foundation received over £4.9 million between 1997 and 2017 from groups linked to the fossil fuel giant Koch Industries. The brothers behind the company, Charles and the late David Koch, have been the principal funders of climate denial groups in the U.S. since the 1980s. 

As revealed by DeSmog, advisory groups working on Project 2025 have received at least $9.6 million from Charles Koch since 2020, along with at least $21.5 million from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is funded by the Mellon oil and banking fortune.

The Heritage Foundation has disputed these figures, though has not offered its own calculations. A spokesperson previously told DeSmog: “Heritage research is independent and accurate, these numbers are not.”

At a 2022 Heritage Foundation event, Nile Gardiner said: “I do think the British government needs to rethink the whole green energy agenda. It’s not a conservative agenda, in fact it’s a socialist agenda”. He added: “I think net zero has become basically a form of religion, and anyone who questions the dogma on this immediately is accused of being a heretic.”

As DeSmog has reported, Kemi Badenoch has regularly criticised the UK’s green ambitions, describing herself as a “net zero sceptic” during her Conservative conference speech in October. 

During the leadership contest, Badenoch published a 40-page manifesto that cited the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a U.S. group led by former advisors to Trump, which has likened climate science to believing the earth is flat. 

Jenrick has also attacked net zero policies and has advocated for increased fossil fuel extraction, including the development of new coal mines. 

Original article by Sam Bright and Adam Barnett republished from DeSmog.

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. Second version, corrected text.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. Second version, corrected text.
Continue ReadingShadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel Has Ties to Group Behind ‘Extreme’ Trump Agenda

Climate Denial Funder Pumps Another £30,000 into Tory Leadership Race

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Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog

Conservative MP James Cleverly. Credit: Andy Taylor / Home Office (CC BY 2.0)

Tory peer and major party donor Michael Hintze has funded the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Conservative Party leadership candidates have received tens of thousands in donations from a funder of the UK’s main climate science denial group. 

The latest register of MPs’ interests shows that James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat each received £10,000 in August from Lord Michael Hintze, a Tory peer who is one of the few known funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). 

Hintze, who has donated more than £4 million to the Conservatives since 2002, also donated £10,000 in August to leadership hopeful Priti Patel, who was voted out of the contest by Tory MPs this week. Tugendhat also received £3,000 from Hintze in December. 

The GWPF actively campaigns against the government’s climate policies and rejects established science on rising temperatures, calling carbon dioxide a “benefit to the planet”. 

Lord Hintze has said he believes “there is climate change” caused “in part due to human activity over the past century”, but “all sides must be heard” on climate change “to reach the right conclusion for society as a whole”.

Authors working for the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.

The IPCC has stated that we are in the midst of “widespread and rapid [changes] … unprecedented over many centuries, to many thousands of years”.

Between the 2019 general election and the start of the 2024 campaign, the Conservatives received £8.4 million from fossil fuel interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers. 

Cleverly, Tugendhat, Patel are not the only Tory leadership hopefuls to have received donations from figures associated with the GWPF. DeSmog revealed in August that Kemi Badenoch had received £10,000 towards her campaign from Neil Record, a millionaire Tory donor and chair of Net Zero Watch (NZW), the GWPF’s campaign arm. 

Record is also a “life vice president” of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank, which he chaired until July 2023. The IEA, which supports new fossil fuel production, has received funding from the oil giant BP every year from 1967 to at least 2018. 

Record has given money to both the IEA and the GWPF, which are part of the Tufton Street network of think tanks and lobbying groups based in Westminster campaigning for less government regulation, including on climate change.

The latest register of interests also shows that Record donated £2,000 to Tory MP Jesse Norman, who is publicly supporting Badenoch’s campaign.

As DeSmog has reported, Tugendhat also received donations and gifts worth £7,000 during the general election campaign from Tory donor and former party treasurer Lord Michael Spencer, who is a fossil fuel investor.

Spencer is the largest shareholder in Deltic Energy, which this year received licences to explore the North Sea for oil and gas. He also holds shares in Pantheon Resources, a UK company exploring for oil in Alaska.  

Spencer, who has donated £6 million to the Conservatives since 2005, previously told DeSmog that oil and gas investments are less than two percent of his portfolio.

Views on Net Zero

Tugendhat, Badenoch, and Patel have vocally criticised the UK’s climate policies. 

In a July interview on GB News, Tugendhat said the UK’s target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 was “not realistic”. Badenoch said in 2022 that it was “arbitrary” and last year suggested she would back delaying it, which would contravene the UK’s legally-binding climate commitments. Patel shares this position, and told GB News last year that net zero targets should be “paused” because the “public are not ready”.

Polling by More in Common and E3G during the general election period found that a majority of people in every UK constituency are worried about climate change. Some 61 percent of 2024 Conservative voters said they are worried about climate change, matched by 76 percent of Labour voters, and 65 percent of the country overall.

In his GB News interview, Tugendhat also defended the previous government’s support for new oil and gas extraction, saying: “Drilling our own oil in the North Sea is more carbon efficient than bringing it in from anywhere else.”

The claim that UK oil and gas has a lower carbon footprint than imports is “misleading” and can only be achieved “by comparing UK gas production to the very dirtiest gas imports”, according to the research and campaign group Uplift.

Cleverly has supported the 2050 target but has said he would favour a “competition-based approach” rather than using the power and funding of the state. However, the private sector has often acted to delay climate action. According to the non-profits groups NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch, which surveyed 51 major companies, their median goal is to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030 – well below the 43 percent reduction identified by the IPCC. 

Cleverly’s leadership campaign told DeSmog that “We thank all of our donors for their support for James Cleverly as the best candidate to unite the Conservative Party and win the next general election.”

Tugendhat, Patel, and Hintze have been approached for comment.

Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog

Continue ReadingClimate Denial Funder Pumps Another £30,000 into Tory Leadership Race

Human rights defenders demand shut down of detention center in the UK

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Original article republished from Peoples Dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

The Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre since its opening in December 2021 has been a site of regular protests demanding its shut down.

Dozens of human rights activists took part in a monthly demonstration outside the Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre demanding it to be shut down. The Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre, earlier known as Hassockfield, located in north east England is an only women detention center and was opened in December 2021 by former Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Original article republished from Peoples Dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingHuman rights defenders demand shut down of detention center in the UK

Priti Patel slammed over ‘law and order’ campaign video next to photo of Boris Johnson

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/06/priti-patel-slammed-over-law-and-order-campaign-video-next-to-photo-of-boris-johnson/

‘Hmm, but that bloke in the picture behind you broke the law, didn’t he?’

Priti Patel has been ridiculed after posting a general election campaign video on social media in which she talks of law and order, whilst standing next to a framed photo of Boris Johnson who was fined for breaking lockdown rules. 

The former Home Secretary was attempting to appeal to voters in the constituency of Witham in a video posted on her X account, in which she declared she is a “passionate believer of law and order”. 

In the video Patel said: “I have also been responsible for changing our laws to ensure that those who do the most terrible things, the most heinous crimes, serve longer prison sentences and I’m unapologetic about that because I believe in law and order and making the right punishment and deterrent to fit the crime.”

Hanging on the wall next to Patel, along with a Vote Conservative banner and a Union Jack flag, is a framed photograph of Boris Johnson. Patel was a key ally to Johnson and was rewarded in Johnson’s honours list. 

Not only was the former Prime Minister fined in 2022 for breaching lockdown rules but he was also found to have deliberately misled Parliament over Partygate and was part of a campaign to abuse and intimidate MPs investigating them, an official inquiry found. 

…

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/06/priti-patel-slammed-over-law-and-order-campaign-video-next-to-photo-of-boris-johnson/

Continue ReadingPriti Patel slammed over ‘law and order’ campaign video next to photo of Boris Johnson

Why it is essential that the UK’s shady think tanks reveal their funders

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Original article by Tom Brake republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

We know think tanks can shape government policy. But we often have no idea who is paying them to do so

openDemocracy’s Who Funds You? report finds think tanks raking in millions ahead of general election  | Getty

You don’t have to follow UK politics too closely to have spotted the names of a handful of think tanks cropping up again and again in the news.

There is little doubt these organisations exert significant influence. Just last year, the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) was reported to have shaped then-prime minister Liz Truss’s disastrous budget.

And sometimes it seems like only hours have passed between the publication of a Policy Exchange research paper and the adoption and implementation of its content as government policy. This is perhaps unsurprising given even Policy Exchange says its “status as the UK’s most influential think tank is widely recognised”.

The influence of high-profile think tanks is also apparent in the revolving door between them and the government. The former CEO of Taxpayers’ Alliance (TA), for example, took up a job in Priti Patel’s office when she was home secretary.

So we know think tanks can shape public policy. What is often far less obvious, though, is who is paying them to do so.

openDemocracy’s annual Who Funds You? report, published today, assesses how transparent think tanks’ financial disclosures were in the past year, grading them on a scale from A to E based on how much they publish about their funders.

I should mention, at this point, that I am the CEO of Unlock Democracy, a think tank awarded an A rating (the most transparent possible) in the report.

The report has revealed that UK think tanks have raised more than £101m to influence public policy in the run-up to the next general election – £25m of which came from ‘dark money’-funded think tanks, which are opaque about funders.

Policy Exchange and the IEA were both awarded D ratings, the second lowest.

There is nothing in either think tank’s mission that indicates any requirement for high levels of secrecy surrounding their funders. So why are they so shy about revealing their backers?

Is it because the public and ministers might view any advocacy of slower action on climate change or accusations of ‘nanny-statism’ over limits on sugar, salt and fat in processed foods differently if their accounts revealed they were partly funded by oil or gas companies, large food manufacturers or private individuals with an interest in promoting deregulation or privatisation? Of course, they might not be. But that’s the point – we don’t know.

Or is it because much of the media might stop describing them, rather generously, as ‘independent’ if the truth were known about from where and whom they received financial support?

Or is it because pressure would build for Parliament to force these think tanks to register as consultant lobbyists?

Given the IEA, Policy Exchange, the Taxpayers’ Alliance and other think tanks have declined to take voluntary action to reveal their sponsors, it is time for the government to step in and require them to declare funders contributing over £5,000 a year.

The media could help by refraining from describing think tanks whose funding remains as murky as the waters in our polluted rivers as ‘independent’.

We would all then be better equipped to establish whether the exhortations of the most influential think tanks will help deliver ‘a stronger society’ or something far less attractive.

The full report is available at opendemocracy.net/who-funds-you/

Original article by Tom Brake republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.  

Continue ReadingWhy it is essential that the UK’s shady think tanks reveal their funders

Supreme court rules Rwanda plan unlawful: a legal expert explains the judgment, and what happens next

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The Rwanda deal was signed when Priti Patel was home secretary. Rwanda visit April 14, 2022. Image: UK Home Office.
The Rwanda deal was signed when Priti Patel was home secretary. Rwanda visit April 14, 2022. Image: UK Home Office.

Before publishing this article unaltered, I draw your attention to these excerpts:

…

It is important to note that the supreme court’s decision is not a comment on the political viability of the Rwanda plan, or on the concept of offshoring asylum processes generally. The ruling focused only on the legal principle of non-refoulement, and determined that in this respect, Rwanda is not a “safe third country” to send asylum seekers.


…


This ruling is likely to revive discussion about the UK leaving the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which holds the UK to the non-refoulement obligation. Some Conservatives, including the former home secretary Suella Braverman, have argued that leaving the convention would make it easier to pass stronger immigration laws.

But while handing down the supreme court judgment, Lord Reed emphasised that there are obligations towards asylum seekers that go beyond the ECHR. The duty of non-refoulement is part of many other international conventions, and domestic law as well. In other words, exiting the ECHR would not automatically make the Rwanda plan lawful or easier to implement.

…

So it would appear that UK is not going to be sending refugees to Rwanda despite Rishi Sunak and Conservative claims that it will.

Supreme court rules Rwanda plan unlawful: a legal expert explains the judgment, and what happens next

Devyani Prabhat, University of Bristol

The UK supreme court has unanimously ruled that the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful.

Upholding an earlier decision by the court of appeal, the supreme court found that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda may be at risk of refoulement – being sent back to a country where they may be persecuted, tortured or killed.

The courts cited extensive evidence from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) that Rwanda does not respect the principle of non-refoulement – a legal obligation. The UNHCR’s evidence questioned the ability of Rwandan authorities to fairly assess asylum claims. It also raised concerns about human rights violations by Rwandan authorities, including not respecting non-refoulement with other asylum seekers.

It is important to note that the supreme court’s decision is not a comment on the political viability of the Rwanda plan, or on the concept of offshoring asylum processes generally. The ruling focused only on the legal principle of non-refoulement, and determined that in this respect, Rwanda is not a “safe third country” to send asylum seekers.

The ruling is another blow to the government’s promise to “stop the boats”. And since the Rwanda plan is at the heart of its new Illegal Migration Act, the government will need to reconsider its asylum policies. This is further complicated by Conservative party infighting and the firing of home secretary Suella Braverman, just two days before the ruling.

How did we get here?

For years, the UK government has been seeking to reduce small boat arrivals to the UK. In April 2022, the UK and Rwanda signed an agreement making it possible for the UK to deport some people seeking asylum in Britain to Rwanda, without their cases being heard in the UK. Instead, they would have their cases decided by Rwandan authorities, to be granted (or rejected) asylum in Rwanda.

While the Rwanda plan specifically was found to be unlawful, the government could, in theory, replicate this in other countries so long as they are considered “safe” for asylum seekers.

The government has not yet sent anyone to Rwanda. The first flight was prevented from taking off by the European court of human rights in June 2022, which said that British courts needed to consider all human rights issues before starting deportations.

A UK high court then decided in December 2022 that the Rwanda plan was lawful.

Catch up on our other coverage of the Rwanda plan:

• Why UK court ruled Rwanda isn’t a safe place to send refugees – and what this means for the government’s immigration plans

• Rwanda deportations: what is the European Court of Human Rights, and why did it stop the UK flight from taking off?

• Suella Braverman is wrong about the UN refugee convention being ‘not fit for purpose’ – here’s why

• The government passed a major immigration law last year – so why is it trying to pass another one?

• ‘A toxic policy with little returns’ – lessons for the UK-Rwanda deal from Australia and the US

Ten asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan and Albania challenged the high court ruling, with the support of the charity Asylum Aid. Their claim was about whether Rwanda meets the legal threshold for being a safe country for asylum seekers.

The court of appeal said it was not and that asylum seekers risked being sent back to their home countries (where they could face persecution), when in fact they may have a good claim for asylum.

The government has since passed the Illegal Migration Act. The law now states that all asylum seekers arriving irregularly (for example, in small boats) must be removed to a safe third country. But now that the Rwanda deal has been ruled unlawful, there are no other countries that have said they would take asylum seekers from the UK.

What happens next?

Former Home Secretary Suella 'Sue-Ellen' Braverman
Former Home Secretary Suella ‘Sue-Ellen’ Braverman continued with the Rwanda policy.

It is clear that the government’s asylum policies will need rethinking. Should another country now be designated as a safe country and different arrangements put in place, these will probably be subject to further legal challenges, including in the European court of human rights and in British courts.

This ruling is likely to revive discussion about the UK leaving the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which holds the UK to the non-refoulement obligation. Some Conservatives, including the former home secretary Suella Braverman, have argued that leaving the convention would make it easier to pass stronger immigration laws.

But while handing down the supreme court judgment, Lord Reed emphasised that there are obligations towards asylum seekers that go beyond the ECHR. The duty of non-refoulement is part of many other international conventions, and domestic law as well. In other words, exiting the ECHR would not automatically make the Rwanda plan lawful or easier to implement.

The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said that he is working on a new treaty with Rwanda and is prepared to change domestic laws to “do whatever it takes to stop the boats”.

The UK is not the only country to attempt to off-shore asylum processing. Germany and Italy have recently been considering finding new safe third countries to accept asylum seekers as well.

But ensuring these measures comply with human rights obligations is complicated. International law requires states to provide sanctuary to those fleeing persecution or risk to their lives. As this ruling shows, the UK is not going to find an easy way out of these obligations.The Conversation

Devyani Prabhat, Professor of Law, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingSupreme court rules Rwanda plan unlawful: a legal expert explains the judgment, and what happens next

Rishi Sunak Boasts That Oil Funded Think Tank ‘Helped Us Draft’ Crackdown on Climate Protests

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Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog according to their republishing guidelines

The prime minister praised Policy Exchange, which received $30,000 from oil and gas giant ExxonMobil in 2017, for shaping laws that target green activists.

Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil's You May Find Yourself... art auction.
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction.

Rishi Sunak has confirmed that a fossil fuel-funded think tank helped to draft his government’s laws targeting climate protests. 

Speaking at Policy Exchange’s summer party on Wednesday (28 June), the prime minister boasted that the think tank’s work “helped us draft” the government’s crackdown on protests, according to Politico.

OpenDemocracy reported last year that Policy Exchange’s US wing, American Friends of Policy Exchange, which provides funds to the UK branch, received $30,000 (roughly £23,700) from oil and gas giant ExxonMobil in 2017.

Two years later, Policy Exchange published a report entitled “Extremism Rebellion”, in reference to the environmental protest group, calling for the police and the government to clamp down on eco protests. 

An Extinction Rebellion spokesperson told DeSmog that this story “exemplifies the stranglehold that private interests have on our democracy.”

Ministers have been clear that new police powers are designed to stop climate protests. The former Home Secretary Priti Patel cited tactics used by Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain when arguing for what became the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. 

Sunak’s statement yesterday appears to confirm Extremism Rebellion’s allegation that sections of the 2022 law were ‘directly inspired’ by Policy Exchange’s report.

The “Extremism Rebellion” report said that legislation relating to public protest needed to be “urgently reformed” in order to “strengthen the ability of the police to place restrictions on planned protest and deal more effectively with mass lawbreaking tactics”.

This was implemented in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, which came into effect in April 2022 and awarded the police new powers to decide what constitutes a ‘disruptive’ protest and to more harshly punish those involved.

In the year to April 2023, more than 2,000 people were arrested and 138 spent time in prison for their involvement in campaigns by Just Stop Oil, the climate protest group.

Those encarcerated included two protesters who were each sentenced to more than two and a half years in prison – the longest sentences for peaceful climate protest in British history, according to the group – for causing a ‘public nuisance’ by scaling the Dartford Crossing.

This crackdown on protests has been continued by current Home Secretary Suella Braverman, a vocal critic of the UK’s net zero targets, who singled out Just Stop Oil when advocating further powers in the Public Order Act 2023, which received Royal Assent in May.

The legislation, which has been labelled as “draconian” by its opponents, allows the police to pre-emptively intervene to shut down protests and creates new offences for what it describes as “guerrilla tactics”, all of which have been used in recent climate protests.

The law criminalises protesters for attaching themselves (or coming equipped) to lock on to other protesters or buildings, threatening a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both.

For organising protests that block key infrastructure including “airports, railways, printing presses, and oil and gas infrastructure” protesters are threatened with up to 12 months in prison, while tunnelling is set at three years.

The law follows a November report by Policy Exchange that said it was “imperative” for protesters who repeatedly obstruct the highways to be “swiftly arrested, convicted and punished”. It further urged that “magistrates and judges should be imposing severe sentences on repeat offenders who aim deliberately to harm the public by breaching the criminal law”.

Sunak, who worked at Policy Exchange before his 2015 election to parliament, also used the summer party to make a jibe about the Labour Party’s links to Just Stop Oil, one of whose funders, Dale Vince, has donated £1.4 million to the party since 2014. 

Sunak’s comments echoed the claim made often by senior Conservatives, that Labour’s opposition to new North Sea oil and gas projects is linked to Dale’s donation. Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, has repeatedly attacked Labour over the connection, writing in the Daily Mail that Labour has become “the political wing of Just Stop Oil”. 

In fact, the International Energy Agency has said that new oil and gas projects are not compatible with keeping warming below 1.5C – an international climate goal that has been adopted by the UK government.

Meanwhile, DeSmog revealed in March that the Conservative Party received £3.5 million from fossil fuel interests, high-polluters and climate science deniers last year alone.

Policy Exchange and Climate Change

Policy Exchange was co-founded in 2002 by Michael Gove, who has been a mainstay in the cabinet since 2010. The think tank continues to retain significant influence in Westminster: Policy Exchange alumni make up a greater number of special advisers in Rishi Sunak’s government than any other think tank.

At the 2022 Conservative Party conference, Jacob Rees-Mogg, at the time serving as Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary, said: “I believe that where Policy Exchange leads, governments have often followed.”

Lord Frost, is currently a senior fellow at the think tank. He was also recently appointed as a director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) – the UK’s principal climate science denial group. This week, Frost – who also attended the Policy Exchange summer party – gave a speech criticising Sunak’s government for offering voters “more net zero”. 

Since 2016, Policy Exchange has hosted events at the Conservative Party conference sponsored by energy companies and trade groups including: wood-burning bioenergy firm Drax, gas and electricity supplier E.on, British Gas parent company Centrica, the gas and electricity industry body Energy Networks Association, gas generation company Cadent Gas, trade association Hydrogen UK, and the Sizewell C nuclear plant. 

According to VICE News, while the think tank does not advertise the cost of sponsored meetings at party conferences, other similar organisations charge over £12,000 to host an event, which lasts about 30 minutes. 

Meanwhile, the chair of the Policy Exchange board is Alexander Downer, who served as Australia’s Foreign Minister from 1996 to 2007. Downer has expressed climate science scepticism in the past, claiming that we are “going through an era” of global warming, and saying that Australian climate leadership would be expensive “virtue signalling”. 

Downer was appointed as the High Commissioner to the UK in 2014 by Tony Abbott, who also recently joined the board of the GWPF. 

Policy Exchange and 10 Downing Street have been approached for comment.

Original article by Adam Barnett and Sam Bright republished from DeSmog according to their republishing guidelines

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Climate protests news 11 April 2022

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I’m having difficulty finding news of Extinction Rebellion’s London protests.

No 10 condemns ‘guerrilla tactics’ as Just Stop Oil activists block fuel depots

Shortages at filling stations reported as campaign obstructs deliveries from fuel terminals in England

Downing Street has condemned the “guerrilla tactics” of protesters who have blockaded fuel distribution terminals, as reports of shortages at petrol station forecourts spread and figures showed a fall in fuel deliveries.

Supporters of the Just Stop Oil campaign have taken action at 11 different fuel terminals in England since the start of the month, blockading and trespassing on sites to stop tankers entering, filling up or leaving to deliver fuel.

Petrol retailers say that the protests are not having a serious impact on deliveries. But there have been dozens of local reports of petrol pumps running dry and Priti Patel, the home secretary, said “people across the country [were] seeing their lives brought to a standstill” by disruption caused by the campaign.

The protesters have vowed to continue taking action until the government agrees on a ban on all new fossil fuel projects. On Monday afternoon, their 11th day of action, several were entering their 31st hour chained to pipework at Inter Terminal in Grays, Essex, the third largest terminal in the country.

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‘One in three petrol stations closed’ in south of England amid oil terminal protests

One in three petrol stations were forced to close in southern England amid oil terminal protests, according to fuel campaigners.

The Fair Fuel UK Campaign claimed an estimated 1,200 pumps south of the Midlands had run dry on Sunday as action by Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion continued.

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Fair Fuel UK wrote on Twitter: “We are getting credible intelligence that 1 in 3 garages have run dry of petrol and/or diesel particularly in the south, because of the ‘stop oil’ amoebas.

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Home secretary Priti Patel branded the “selfish” protesters an “eco mob” as she attempted to blame Labour for not supporting the Conservatives’ new draconian police powers in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

She told the Daily Mail: “Hard-working people across our country are seeing their lives brought to a standstill by selfish, fanatical and frankly dangerous so-called activists.

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I think that it’s beyond any doubt that they are activists Priti. Selfish and fanatical for trying to save the planet from burning to a crisp? It appears to me that UK government is selfish and fanatical through ignoring the most recent IPCC report comprising the collected wisdom of renowned scientists stating that immediate action is needed.

UK govt line appears to be that the protests are having limited affect in disrupting supplies and that protestors are selfish.

Continue ReadingClimate protests news 11 April 2022

Priti Patel’s Home Office stole refugees’ phones

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The Home Office seized refugees’ phones illegally. It should be dismantled

Priti Patel’s Home Office operated a grossly unlawful – and spectacularly cruel – policy of seizing the phones of refugees arriving in the UK

George Peretz

Calls to break up the Home Office – and redistribute its functions across Whitehall – are about to grow even louder, following Friday’s ruling that the department broke the law by confiscating refugees’ phones.

There are some basic principles of English law that you ought to be able to rely on with absolute security when you deal with the state. One of these is that you cannot be searched by an officer of the state, or have your property seized, without a specific legal basis.

Though this has modern overlays in the form of the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act, it falls mostly into the legal specialism known as the bleeding obvious. Or, to use the politer words of the High Court when considering the spectacular failure of the Home Office: “None of the legal concepts involved is novel or recondite.”

The behaviour that generated this judicial reaction was the Home Office’s policy, during most of 2020, of greeting people arriving on small boats to claim refugee status with an immediate search for their mobile phones, seizing those phones, demanding the passwords for those phones (while falsely claiming that it was an offence not to give them), downloading all the data on those phones onto Home Office systems and, finally, refusing to return the phones.

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Continue ReadingPriti Patel’s Home Office stole refugees’ phones

UK Tory government intends to criminalise the fundamental democratic right to protest

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5 WAYS THE GOVERNMENT’S POLICING BILL JUST WENT FROM BAD TO WORSE

Jun Pang – Policy and Campaigns Officer on 02 Dec 2021 at Liberty

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Not content with the already draconian powers in the [Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts] Bill to shut down protests and criminalise people trying to make their voices heard, the Government has recently added amendments to it.

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1. LOCKING ON

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Locking on only needs to be “capable” of causing serious disruption to “two or more people”. On top of that, no one knows what “serious disruption” means because it’s not defined in the Bill. Instead, the Home Secretary will get to define and re-define it at will.

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2. WILFUL OBSTRUCTION OF THE HIGHWAY

The current punishment for someone who wilfully obstructs the highway is a fine. Amendments to the Policing Bill will change it to up to 51 weeks in prison, a fine, or both.

Such heavy punishments will stop people taking to the streets to stand up to power – and will add to existing pressures on courts, prisons, and the probation service.

3. OBSTRUCTION OF MAJOR TRANSPORT WORKS

This is another new offence that a person commits if they obstruct someone from taking any steps connected to the construction or maintenance of any major transport works, or they in any way interfere with “any apparatus” relating to that construction or maintenance.

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4. STOP AND SEARCH

The Government’s amendments will also expand stop and search. Police will be able to stop and search a person or vehicle for items intended for use in connection with the offences in the Bill: obstructing the highway, public nuisance, locking on, and obstructing major transport works.

Police will also be able to put orders in place allowing for ‘suspicion-less’ stop and search for these items in a specific location for up to 24 hours (and up to 48 hours, if authorised).

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5. SERIOUS DISRUPTION PREVENTION ORDERS – PROTEST BANNING ORDERS

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People given a protest banning order will be subject to a set of conditions, including not associating with certain people, going to certain places, carrying certain items, or using the internet in a certain way.

They can last for up to two years, but there is no limit to the number of times a protest banning order can be renewed by the court.

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Protest is a fundamental right, but protest banning orders effectively ban people from organising and making their voices heard, striking at the heart of what makes protest meaningful and effective: political community.

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TAKE ACTION

These new offences will either deter people from protesting, or drag them into the criminal justice system for doing so. They will further entrench discrimination, with devastating consequences for marginalised communities.

But they are’t law yet, and this Government buckles under public pressure and u-turns time and again.

If you haven’t yet signed the petition against the Policing Bill, do so today.

We’ve also created this quick and easy tool to email your MP and tell them to stop this dangerous and discriminatory Bill from becoming law.

Continue ReadingUK Tory government intends to criminalise the fundamental democratic right to protest