The conviction yesterday of the 22 protesters who stopped a coal train in June 2008 carrying 42,000 tonnes of coal to the Drax power station in North Yorkshire and shovelled the coal on to the embankment throws a spotlight on the murky interface between environmental protest and the law. This is an area where the Establishment has been worsted several times in recent years and has been desperately anxious to turn the tables legally against green protesters. The authorities suffered their first setback in 2000 when Lord Melchett, a former Environment Minister, led a party into a GM field in Norfolk to trash the crop as a protest against the Government’s intention to introduce genetically modified food into Britain, only to find to their intense chagrin that the protesters were acquitted by the jury. Then in September last year the Kingsnorth 6 were acquitted by a Kent jury after they had managed to paint a message to Gordon Brown (and the media) on the chimney of the power station condemning the proposed new round of coal station building, since coal-burning is the most polluting of greenhouse gases. Then there were green protesters on the roof of the Palace of Westminster unfolding banners against the third runway at Heathrow and further action in another episode digging up part of the runway at Stansted Airport. Then on 2 April this year at the G20 meeting in London peaceful gatherings were violently attacked in a number of filmed incidents, as though environmental protesters were somehow the enemies of the State. So the Establishment was certainly keen to reverse their setbacks and score a legal victory in the Drax case, but the methods they deployed need examination.

Significantly, previous cases of this kind had been held before a jury. This one was decided by a single judge, James Spencer, at the Leeds crown court. Who picked the judge, knowing perhaps the views he held on such politically sensitive issues as climate change protest which can often involve disruption of property? Notably the judge declared that climate change was irrelevant to the trial, even though the protesters made clear that it was the sole motivation for their actions. He also refused to allow expert witnesses like the NASA scientist, Prof. James Hansen, to give evidence at the trial, perhaps because he would have repeated his claim that coal stations above all were ‘factories of death’.
The political stage-managing of the trial was made clear by the judge’s declaration that if the power station contributed to global warming, it was for Government to deal with it, not environmental activists – the argument regularly used down the ages to face down dissent, until of course it becomes too strong when governments succumb to the inevitable. The judge insisted that the action taken was neither reasonable nor proportionate when democratic processes were available to bring about political change. But that misses the whole point. The scientists are repeatedly warning that climate change is happening faster and more intensely than had previously been thought, yet the governmental response across the world has been glacial. What does one do if the threat is overriding and enormous, but the political response is not remotely adequate to addressing it? The judge did not wait for an abswer.
Instead the Crown prosecution made clear it demanded the maximum costs, to deter such protests in future. But such intimidatory tactics are likely to be counter-productive. Already a new protest is taking place at Kingsnorth with protesters from a coalition including Oxfam, WI, Greenpeace, and RSPB forming a human chain around the plant. Last time the Kent police blanket-searched protesters, filmed participants including journalists and played loud music to disrupt the protest. The police have since admitted they were at fault and part of their action is now subject to judicial review. The repressive forces of the State have still not learnt that suppression of peaceful protest only magnifies its coverage further.

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