‘Path to fossil fuel authoritarianism’

Will McCallum, co-executive director of Greenpeace tweeted that the report was “nothing short of a 300-page attack on democracy”, and that applying its recommendations would bring the UK “as close to becoming a police state as we’ve ever been,” he said.  “The powers to stop violence already exist, this review wants to stifle our civil liberties,” he wrote.

Interfered

Tim Crosland, director of PlanB, pointed out that Walney’s work for the government had been “hugely influential”, with a recommendation he had made for a ban on masks at protests already coming into law. 

“If everybody understood that he’s being paid by the energy and oil industry, I don’t think people would be taking it so seriously,” he said. 

Walney formerly served as a Labour and then independent MP for Barrow and Furness from 2010 to 2019. He resigned from the Labour Party in 2018, which had suspended him following allegations of sexual harassment by a former staff member, which he denied. 

Boris Johnson, prime minister at that time, made him a life peer in 2020, when he was also given the role of Special Envoy for Countering Violent Extremism. The role was “reshaped” to be Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption in 2020 “due to the changes brought about by the pandemic”, according to a Home Office spokesperson. 

In his report, Walney wrote that “extreme political activists are targeting core elements of Britain’s democracy, including elected representatives, the free press, and educational settings”. These tactics impacted the economy, targeting supply chains, fuel and energy, transport and businesses and industry, and interfered with ordinary citizens going about their daily lives, he said. 

Undercover

Movements including environmental and anti-racism were part of a “far left subculture” which had anti-establishment and anarchist ideologies as “an inseparable part of their worldview”, he wrote. XR’s rhetoric on uprising and rebellion and “system change, not climate change”, was an example of its rooting in anarchy, he said. “By focusing its demands on the creation of a Citizen’s Assembly rather than adopting specific policy proposals, Extinction Rebellion has largely avoided scrutiny of its vision for the future,” he wrote.

Walney’s recommendations to the government include: 

• That central and local government must not engage with groups who “do not use legal means to secure change”, or who use intimidation or harassment;
• Restrictions on groups’ ability to organise or fundraise;
• Expansion of the grounds on which the police can block a protest from taking place;
• Buffer zones around energy and defence infrastructure and increased use of injunctions against activists targeting them;
• Compensation for members of the public and businesses disrupted by activism; and
• Forcing activist groups to contribute to policing when demonstrations are large and numerous.

It also recommended that the government should review whether the police should use undercover surveillance to prevent serious disruption during protests, while acknowledging that this was “clearly an area that draws controversy on civil liberties grounds”.

The recommendation came in spite of evidence given by the police to the review, stating that there was “nervousness” around submitting requests to the Home Office for undercover policing due to the public perception that groups such as XR had a “decent” ideology. 

Disruption

Officers in the Met Public Order Intelligence Unit, which is in charge of non-extremism public order concerns, had said that their remit does not meet the threshold for covert surveillance because it covered low-level offending. However, Walney argued that its threshold did not take into account the “wider erosion of the democratic process and social cohesion”.

In an interview on Sky News, Walney noted that though organisations such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action had “not yet” been judged to meet the threshold to be defined as terrorist organisations, they were using criminal tactics. “Proscription has worked in the terrorist context to be able to restrict the activities of certain organisations – it’s not perfect, but it can be an important tool,” he said.

Cleverly called Walney’s report “pertinent and considered”. In a letter to Walney, the government said it would consider the thresholds of imposing conditions on protests, including blocking them; putting greater responsibilities on protest organisers to manage and limit the potential for demonstrations to “descend into violence or disruption,” and to allow the policy to set conditions “in their jurisdictions beyond protests”. 

The report was presented in the House of Commons under a procedure called a “motion for unopposed return”, exempting it from scrutiny by Parliament, while giving it “Parliamentary privilege”, meaning that Walney cannot be sued for defamation.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “There are established rules for all independent advisors to government, and clear guidance is provided on required processes and codes of conduct.” Lord Walney’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 

This Author

Catherine Early is a freelance environmental journalist and chief reporter for the Ecologist. She tweets at @Cat_Early76.