Critical Mass sets off for Rolling Resistance
At the time of writing a large intrepid band of Critical Mass cyclists are partway through their day-long journey to lend support to anti-fracking protectors on Preston New Road, Lancashire.
Beginning in central Manchester, the crew’s 45-mile journey to join Reclaim the Power‘s month-long Rolling Resistance campaign against Cuadrilla is winding its way through local sites of fossil fuel resistance including Barton Moss Community Protection Camp and Bolton… Continue reading
Locals shut down development works at “Gatwick Gusher” oil site
Works have been closed for several hours today after two protectors locked-on at the gates of an oil-drilling site owned by UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) at Broadford Bridge in West Sussex.
The pair, with several supporters, were at the site for some time before being approached by police liason officers as they stretched across the entrance on Adversane Lane, shutting off the road in both… Continue reading
Dirty energy resistance roundup: Court cases, blockades and police aggression
Court cases have opened today at Merthyr Tydfil court as prosecutions are brought against five Reclaim the Power and Earth First! activists for their action against Miller Argent’s Ffos-y-fran opencast coal mine last month [Update: They were ordered to pay £10,000 compensation].
The five “canaries” in the coal mine shut the site after chaining themselves to two excavators and blocking the freight road in in an effort to… Continue reading
GMB calls for police crackdown against anti-frack activists
Pro-fracking service union GMB has written to politicians urging them to ensure that police take a harder line against protesters so that frack company employees don’t get held up on their way to work.
In an apparent total disregarding of the long history of police dirty tactics breaking strikes and picket lines in Britain, as well as numerous reports of police misbehaviour against fracking protesters, GMB sent out… Continue reading
Frack the system: The UK’s hydrocarbon threat
With the fracking industry poised to attempt its largest assault on communities across the country to date, and what would be its most significant advance in this country since 2011 if not resisted, it seems an appropriate time to take a look back at what has led to this threat we are facing and examine what we are fighting for.
The Fracking Threat
The last decade has seen an explosion… Continue reading
Anti-Fascist Network: National Action ban isn’t a positive development
Following Monday’s government ban on National Action, the neo-Nazi former youth wing of the BNP, anti-fascists are warning that the measure won’t make a dent in the rise of far-right activity — but opens the door to similar measures against all political dissent.
National Action, which worked under the slogan “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain,” infamously celebrated the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in June 2016… Continue reading
Sowing seeds of hope
In this article written for the new issue of Peace News, peace activist Andrea Needham reflects on her experiences on the road this year talking to peace activists about Seeds of Hope, the group she was part of which in 1996 broke onto a military base and destroyed a Hawk Jet to stop it from being exported to commit atrocities in East Timor. The story of the action and… Continue reading
No Reforming Earth Destruction
“The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.” Utah Phillips
As we endure the first few weeks of the newly instated Teresa May regime an opportunity for anti authoritarians presents itself in after the abolition of the Department for Climate Change.
The post will now be included in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. This approach… Continue reading
Notes From the USA: July Roundup
Environment
-The protests against Shell’s plan to drill in the Arctic continue; the company’s Polar Pioneer drilling rig is moored to the south in Seattle in Washington state. In the second week of June activists used their bodies, chains, and cement-filled barrels to halt operations at the port of Seattle. This action included six members of the ‘Raging Grannies’, a group of Seattle grandmothers; five were arrested as they led… Continue reading
Reclaim the Power: Cuadrilla’s assumption of victory is sheer arrogance
Among the many attempted fracking projects being pushed forward in Britain this year, Preston New Road has been a site of particularly strong resistance. Site owner Cuadrilla, run by a former BP executive and backed by private equity giant Riverstone Holdings, has repeatedly tried to railroad communities into accepting the imposition of dangerous gas mining despite sustained resistance.
In a statement today green direct action group Reclaim the Power reports… Continue reading →