This weekend saw yet another demonstration of the ease with which those in power can exploit and abuse such power in their favour.  In this case it concerns the power to define the rights of freedom of expression: a power which lies in the hands of people who have a vested interest in limiting it…

On Saturday September 4th, Extinction Rebellion blockaded the printing works of News UK, an organisation owned by the Murdoch family; headed by Rupert Murdoch.  According to Extinction Rebellion (XR), they “…targeted the billionaire-owned media because they are not responding to the scale and the urgency of the climate and ecological crisis and the main reason for this is that our press is in the hands of the powerful who have vested interests, who are set on dividing us, and are in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry…”

The protests have been decried by both the government and the Leader of the Labour Party as restricting the ability of people to read what they want, stating that “The free press is the cornerstone of democracy and we must do all we can to protect it. Denying people the chance to read what they choose is wrong and does nothing to tackle climate change.”  Yet as Extinction rebellion state “A free press is about speaking truth to power, but how can we do this when the press is owned by a powerful few?“

For reasons of perspective: through News UK and it predecessor organisations, Rupert Murdoch has enjoyed unparalleled influence over the British press for more 40 years.  The newspapers run by the Murdoch family have been accused by Rupert Murdoch’s own son as playing down the human contribution to climate change.  This so-called  ‘free press’ is ‘free’ to mix news with opinion.  It is a press which is under no obligation to present an unbiased view of anything, a press which in short, can seek to exploit the perceptions of its readers through the provision of half-truths and opinions and present them as ‘news’.

Nevertheless, whether or not the press is ‘free’ is not the point of this article, what is, is the ability of those in power to limit and restrict the ability of those not in power, to speak.  In reaction to the protests, the UK government is reportedly looking into the legal classification of the group Extinction Rebellion (possibly making it a criminal or terrorist organisation?) alongside apparently investigating the possibility of giving police “greater scope to intercept demonstrators.”

What this clearly demonstrates is that the government being criticised, has within its power the ability to redraw the definitions of legal protest; which means that those in power can effectively take steps to limit criticism of them by making certain forms of expression or protest illegal.  This power immediately provides the government with the moral high-ground whenever such ‘rules’ are breached – by allowing them to brand protestors as criminals.

Should XR be reclassified as a ‘criminal’ or ‘terrorist’ organisation, this will represent just one more step on the way to silencing the voices of people whom those in power do not want to hear.  I say yet another step since despite the fact that the Right to Protest (Article 10) and the Right of Peaceful Assembly (Article 11) are part of the 1998 Human Rights Act – these ‘rights’ have already been watered down by UK governments.  Examples of this are the prevention of protests from gathering in Parliament Square without the prior permission of the Greater London Authority and the removal of the right of protestors to erect tents or other sleeping equipment or use loud-hailers.  Alongside this is the Terrorism Act 2000 which has previously been used to detain or prevent dissenters from voicing their opinions as well as to detain a person carrying the information of a journalist concerning an article.

The ability then of any government to determine what forms of dissent are legal is a power which is open to abuse and which flies very much in the face of the idea that citizens have freedom of expression.

The arguments that support the restriction of some forms of protest often revolve around the idea of disruption to the community or specific people – however the disruption may well be the very objective of such forms of protest.  The Withdrawal of Labour (striking) has been used by and is an accepted practice of Trade Unions who feel that they have no other way to make their opinions known to an organisation – how is civil disruption from a protest group any different?  Governments are the organisations of citizens, therefore the right to disrupt the ‘organisation’ should remain the same.  Civil disobedience should be considered a valid form of protest – especially when the ‘organisation’ refuses to listen or to act.

(In 2015 the UK signed the Paris Agreement to limit emissions in an attempt to keep global warming under 2°C.  In 2017 the government faced legal challenges because the steps being taken were insufficient to meet the target of a 57% reduction by 2032.  In 2018 the Committee for Climate Change said that the UK will miss its legally binding targets without more ambitious policies, and at the start of 2020 the UK is reported as at risk of missing its targets.  In 2019 alone there were more than 200 peaceful protests about the climate, and yet the UK is still at risk of missing its targets – as are many other countries, only Morocco has policies which are consistent with meeting the goal of the Paris Agreement!)

Governments should not be allowed to determine what form protests should take, the very principle is akin to allowing turkeys to vote for Christmas.  Governments have manifestly shown in the last decade that they are  unresponsive to protest, to allow them to limit dissent is preposterous.