Policed to Extinction, Part 1

By Clare Farrell and republished with permission

‘Who killed Just Stop Oil?’ Who ‘policed’ them ‘to extinction’?

The BBC article last Friday and the Observer spread on Sunday from which these questions are pulled are evidence that the journalists and commentators know exactly who has smothered justified protest to death. They just don’t have enough courage to say it.

Both articles were timed to reflect on Saturday’s final Just Stop Oil event, yet another peaceful march in London. Over three years JSO has, like the canary in the coalmine, warned those who cannot see, smell or taste the collapsing climate that going further down this dark tunnel will kill us all.

But the canary is dead now. Hung up the hi-viz. Who killed it? Was it the police, the government, the think tanks, the public? Or “everyone” as David Taylor asks in The Observer (now owned by Tortoise Media, uncomfortably close to oil and gas companies).

This is a long read split over four posts, so I’m going to tell you my answer up front, so you can decide if you want to read on.

The question isn’t who killed effective climate protest. The question is why?

There’s lots of surface level answers to that. But the real one is this:

The people who work at Policy Exchange are afraid of love.

Why isn’t that the story journalists are writing? If you want to, you can read on for how this happened, why Policy Exchange could get away with writing government policy, why they are cowards who are afraid of love, and what we must do next.

Policy Exchange hit job

Journalists know the new public order laws have made protest impossible, particularly if you use effective means. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 updated public nuisance laws with sentences of up to 10 years. The Public Order Act 2023 gave police powers to halt protests that cause “more than minor” disruption, with a special clause for the Home Secretary to initiate (something challenged by Liberty). Public nuisance was once a charge that citizens would lay at the feet of companies that damage the community they operate around and affect badly. It’s been flipped back onto and against citizens.

Much of this happened as the Met Police and The Sun newspaper also worked hand-in-hand to rat out people for the crime of being terrified for their children’s future. It means that the kinds of disruptive protests that JSO practiced are not possible any longer; the price is too high. ‘Policed to extinction’ as the BBC puts it.

But who decided that these public order laws were the best response to the climate crisis?

Think tanks thunk them up. Policy Exchange’s 2019 report “Extremism Rebellion” was a strategic hit job – to as quickly as possible reframe legitimate and justified protest as having some sort of “sinister”, “subversive” and “secret” underlying terrorist and extremist ideology.

Policy Exchange could see how successful the climate movement was becoming. They could see it growing into a global movement powered by the love of ordinary citizens to take appropriate, accountable, nonviolent action, when our governments were so blatantly not.

They could already see that Extinction Rebellion was mainstreaming new ideas in culture; being a cultural success. Extinction Rebellion shifted the dial on climate, on awareness, on action. People were waking up to the real situation our politicians and the think tanks had let carry on for decades – the fossil-fuel driven imbalance of our earth’s energy systems, leading to the destruction of the liveable slither of atmosphere that surrounds our planet.

But all of this was a threat to the status quo: to the power and profits of oil and gas, and the people who represent the interests of oil and gas. So Policy Exchange shifted into top gear to strategically shut down legitimate and justified climate protest as quickly as it could. It’s called “the chilling effect”. Here’s a sample of their language in their report:

“seek a more subversive agenda”“rooted in the political extremism of… radical anti-capitalist environmentalism.”“the breakdown of democracy and the state.”“the breakdown of the rule of law.”“Extinction Rebellion is an extremist organisation”“the ominous and threatening intention”“Obscured from public view, these objectives mark Extinction Rebellion’s campaign out as an extremist one that seeks to break down the established civil order”“bring down the government”

And in case you hadn’t quite caught their righteous tone:

“the public will benefit enormously from this seminal paper that breaks new ground in the understanding of environmental extremism in the UK.”

Policy Exchange sought to denigrate, delegitimize, and slander Extinction Rebellion. It’s an age-old tactic practiced by oil and gas firms, as my friend and colleague Nuala has written elsewhere. Their slippery reach into levels of government made sure their ideas and language were adopted, because the Tory government (made up of millionaires) also wanted to protect the business-as-usual profits of their mates in oil and gas.

Rishi Sunak thanked Policy Exchange personally for “helping draft” the laws. Policy Exchange call themselves “the UK’s most influential think tank” with bankers, Telegraph writers and Tory special advisers at the helm. So journalists do know. In fact they know everything about the entire think tank strategy. It’s a strategy to keep the economics of planet-wrecking business afloat. The liberal press don’t expose their strategies even though they are clear. Why is that?

So now the canary is dead. And we’ll all asphyxiate? Maybe, maybe not.

Think Tank Crimes

Think tank crimes are:

• Crimes against reason

• Crimes against compassion

• A war against the young

• A war against the poor

• A war against nature

Think Tanks have long influenced government policy, law, and society, down to whether or not we can afford the cost of living. That’s what they’re set up to do, and they measure success by it. Think Tanks shaped Tory austerity policies, making millions of us poorer. In the US, Donald Trump’s new attacks on DEI policies were old news for the 11 think tanks that propagated wide scale attacks on DEI through 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Don’t think Labour are better at protecting protest. It’s not only in the UK, either. Across the US, Latin America, Australia the same is happening. In Germany, climate protest was immediately labelled “terrorism” by small-time politician Frank Schläffler, who… started a think tank to spread his ideology, plugging into the global right-wing Atlas Network.

But think tanks aren’t operating independently to criminalise protest. They are pushing corporate agendas to maintain corporate power. What baffles me is how the journalists writing about “who killed JSO” don’t focus on these think tank crimes committed against the activists. Most commentators, including Justin Rowlatt who wrote the ‘balanced’ BBC piece, know these crimes of morality have directly led to the laws locking up peaceful protesters.

More than this, the people who advocated for these laws wanted to push the climate movement underground. Back in 2019, I knew Policy Exchange strategists wanted to push our successful, accountable, popular, joyful, family friendly, nonviolent rebellion underground. Because that’s when they can call you a terrorist – all those terrorist families and grannies! – and then they can treat you like one: bang you up in prison.

It was all very clear to us. Policy Exchange collaborated with a disgraced copper; one who was cowardly enough to run away (‘retire’) from The Met before he was properly investigated for what was deemed a case to answer for misconduct around the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, one of the most famous cases and inquiries of its time. They wrote their report and handed it to the government. Easy fodder.

Policy Exchange are smart. They saw exactly what a threat all the loving individuals and communities who formed Extinction Rebellion would be to their funders’ hold on unequal power. As cowards afraid of this love, they used their strategic influence over the Prime Minister and Home Secretary to drive mothers and doctors and farmers, all terrified of climate collapse, out of protest, to prison, or underground.

They understood that one of our most successful strategic positions was commitment to accountable nonviolence. Accountable nonviolence means, in essence, that you will go out and do what you think it takes to steer society onto a safer course, be that with nuclear weapons, climate, or even the cost of living – and be accountable for your actions. To be accountable is to love. To push protest underground is to disrespect our democratic right to dissent from immoral progress. Why is that not the story?