In 2020, Burning Pink/Beyond Politics began a campaign of direct action against ineffective liberal organisations in the face of climate catastrophe. Two and a half years later in a major trial at Wood Green Crown Court, twelve people faced a total of 20 charges in connection with an alleged conspiracy. Eighteen of those indictments ended in not guilty verdicts, but the jury couldn’t reach agreement over two activists facing a charge of burglary for spraying the Green party HQ office with the group’s signature pink paint.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) pushed for a retrial, and this week, nearly four years after their protest, Blyth Brentnall and Nick Cooper were finally back in court at Wood Green for a three day trial.
In a recent article, Real Media looked at the ways in which legal rulings have been moving the goalposts for protest activists facing trial. This case is a stark example of how manifestly unfair that process has become. Had they been tried soon after their action in August 2020, they would have had multiple lawful defences such as human rights, prevention of a greater crime, proportionality, and belief in consent. But by the time the Burning Pink conspiracy trial was heard in February 2022, the lawful defences available had diminished to ‘belief in consent’. Even on that basis, after five weeks in court, the jury decided to acquit on all but two charges, on which they were split (known as ‘hung jury’ or ‘no verdict’). Eighteen months later when these two are back in court, there is no longer ANY lawful defence.
It’s a straightforward moral and legal principle that a government can’t pass a law and then prosecute someone retroactively under that new law – clearly this would be unfair. But somehow our prosecutors and judges appear comfortable in prosecuting people using new “clarifications” or interpretations of existing laws, which weren’t in place at the time of the offence. Worse still in this case, when the prosecution didn’t get their guilty verdict in 2022 over these two, they pushed for a retrial, which didn’t take place until after ‘belief in consent’ had been ruled out as a defence by further ‘clarifications’ in law. How can this be moral, fair or just?
Even with literally no lawful defence available, it still took more than four hours and further questions to the judge before the jury reached their guilty verdict today, but with a justice system so moulded towards a particular outcome, one has to ask what was the point of wasting a jury’s time other than to rubber stamp a done deal?
This trial also demonstrated how existing laws are applied differently to some than others. If a defendant were to start swearing in court, they may end up in the cells. And if they were to reveal the identity of someone in defiance of a an absolute High Court ruling, they might go to prison for two years. But prosecuting counsel Diana Wilson (who has represented the Crown Prosecution in several major climate and anti-arms protest trials) did both those things this week, and was just quietly advised by the court clerk, and simply apologised to the judge, with no further repercussions.
Another shocking aspect of this trial is the role of the Green Party itself. The original protest was meant to be a shocking wake-up call, and a demand for them to put their considerable influence into mobilising for real change through recently proven techniques of civil resistance. Remember this was just after Extinction Rebellion had forced the government, within a few weeks of mass civil disobedience, to declare a ‘Climate Emergency’, which was then copied by many other countries around the world.
In 50 years of campaigning, not only had the party failed to make any significant political inroads themselves, but carbon emissions had continually risen, and more than half the planet’s species had been wiped out. Worse still, according to Chidi Oti-Obihara, a green finance expert who stood as a Green MP in 2017, the party actively advised campaigners and representatives not to talk about the extent of the climate crisis in fear of putting people off. He attended executive meetings as their finance co-ordinator where this policy was openly discussed, and he asks “if the Green party can’t talk about climate change, who can?”
In the actions at the political party HQs, a letter was pasted on walls and windows accusing the British political class, including the Greens, of their utter failure and appeasement in the face of a crisis that was already condemning millions of black lives to destitution and death in Africa and around the tropical areas of the world. Telling them to step up or get out of the way, they asked them to ‘mend their windows and mend their ways’. While absolutely non-violent, the action was meant to be shocking and transgressive, in the tradition of Suffragettes smashing windows in Oxford Street, and Martin Luther King accusing reformists of their class hypocrisy. The action at the Green party office took place very early in the morning and Mr Cooper said he made certain no-one was around who might be startled.
Green party MP Caroline Lucas was arrested for aggravated trespass while campaigning against fracking. The party’s joint leader, Jonathan Bartley, had to be removed from the road by police at a protest in 2017. Green peer Natalie Bennett publicly endorsed the actions of Plane Stupid, arrested for occupying an airport runway and later found guilty of aggravated trespass. But when people took action against the party itself, that support for protest went out the window. The original Burning Pink trial in 2022 was the result of infiltration by Green party candidate Ashley Routh, who made a secret recording of a Zoom call and gave it to the police. Although that trial ended in so many acquittals, as far as we are aware no-one from the Greens has offered support nor put pressure on the CPS to drop this week’s retrial, and they still sought £350 compensation.
Because both defendants had served some time on remand and long periods on strict curfew, Judge Holmes had little option but to give them conditional discharges, along with £3000 costs and the Green party’s compensation.
All Burning Pink activists believe strictly in non-violence in civil resistance, but Mr Cooper referred to a speech given by Theresa May in Parliament Square on the centenary of the Suffragette movement in which, without her referencing their extreme violence (an extensive bombing campaign causing multiple injuries), she said that her right to vote had not been handed over willingly but “had to be forced”. The Green party’s own policy documents advocate for civil resistance even when leading to arrest when necessary. Both examples suggest that direct action is the lifeblood of a functioning liberal democracy.
Was it really in anyone’s interest to pursue these two principled and non-violent people for a second time when so many worse crimes await court time and when one jury had already failed to reach agreement over whether their action was indeed unlawful? And why would the Green party be complicit in the four-year persecution of two climate activists who may just have had a serious and valid point – that worse than not doing enough, the party could actually be draining energy and resources from their many supporters and others who might otherwise take more effective action?
During sentencing, Mr Cooper addressed the jury and said that as an advocate of citizens assemblies, and acknowledging that civil resistance is not an exact science, the verdict given by twelve randomly-selected citizens was important to him and made him question whether perhaps on this occasion his judgment had been wrong.
The Green party was contacted and given time to respond to this article but had not done so at time of publication.
