By Graham Wroe
In August 2024, Reclaim the Power was organising a climate protest camp near Drax Power Station, the UK’s single largest carbon emitter. But it never happened as police arrested many of the organisers before it began.
The protest camp was to involve “six days of workshops, communal living and direct action to crash Drax’s profits”. Following the arrests, the camp was cancelled because the police had seized the necessary equipment.
150 environmental organisations signed a statement accusing the police of acting as “private security” for Drax, while activists said the sting showed the police had the wrong priorities.
On September 23rd, the charges against 15 people, including 5 from Sheffield, accused of ‘going equipped to lock on’ were thrown out on the second day of the scheduled two-week trial in Leeds Magistrates Court, citing a lack of evidence. Amongst the evidence offered by the prosecution were string and duct tape as examples of ‘going equipped to lock on’.
All 15 were pre-emptively arrested in a £3 million policing operation in August 2024, which involved 1,070 officers from 39 forces of the 44 forces in Britain, and the seizing of accessible toilets, wheelchair trackway and tents. This happened in the same week the police claimed their resources were too “stretched” to provide protection for asylum seekers being attacked in their accommodation by far-right rioters.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that North Yorkshire Police used contractors to provide accommodation, vehicle hire, hire of portaloos, car parking, skips and fencing. The total cost of the operation was £3,168,432.
The planned camp aimed to stand in solidarity with the frontline communities impacted by Drax’s pellet operations and shine a light on Drax’s harmful operations abroad. These communities have repeatedly accused Drax of driving environmental racism, citing the severe air pollution caused by wood pellet production, releasing hazardous air pollutants, and leaving community members relying on medical equipment to breathe.
The pre-emptive arrests of the Drax 15 form part of a broader pattern of the ever-increasing crackdown on the right to protest in Britain. The UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders has warned that environmental activists face a “severe” crackdown due to the repressive legislative framework, and the repeated police repression of pro-Palestine demonstrations has drawn widespread condemnation from the UN and human rights organisations like Amnesty International.
Defendant Phil Ball said:
“We were pre-emptively arrested under a law written by a right-wing think tank bought and paid for by fossil fuel money. A law forced through Parliament by a Home Secretary from the Tory party, bought and paid for by fossil fuel money.
It was misused by the police, and then, despite having no evidence, the Crown Prosecution Service, for some reason, pursued this ridiculous case. The original police operation was a shocking waste of taxpayer money. This preposterous case was a further waste of taxpayers’ money, at a time when there’s a judicial backlog. But more than that, it’s part of a strategic attack on our democratic rights to peaceful protest.
Whilst it is of course a welcome decision, the question remains why this absurd case was ever taken this far.”
Defendant Laurie said:
“Throughout this case, police and prosecutors have acted only to protect Drax’s profits and suppress peaceful protest, and today’s decision is a welcome affirmation that the entire process against us has been a complete farce.“
It is particularly concerning that the police spent so much time on this and other peaceful protests, such as Defend our Juries, where 1600 arrests took place for people holding signs opposing Genocide in Palestine, yet when the extreme-right march in London, there were not enough police to protect themselves, let alone the public, resulting in many assaults on police officers.
Meanwhile, Drax continues to Greenwash (lie) in its advertising about how sustainable it is. Biomass involves burning wood for energy, which produces more carbon emissions than burning coal. Drax rely on a carbon accounting quirk, where greenhouse gas emissions from burning wood are counted as zero. They claim to generate renewable energy, but scientists warn that biomass is a false solution to climate change and is replacing real carbon reductions. The wood pellets burnt at Drax are imported from the US, Canada and the Baltic States. The BBC reported that much of this wood is from primary and old-growth forests which are vital for biodiversity.
Earlier this year, the Government accepted that Drax is burning an unsustainable quantity of biomass. It decided to limit the amount of electricity from the power station it would subsidise, in order to alleviate this situation. Rather than running down its generation accordingly, Drax has joined a bid to host an AI Growth Zone. If successful, a data centre requiring vast amounts of electricity would be built at Drax to allow the power station to maintain a high level of generation, whilst bypassing sustainability regulations.
The police must stop treating the people alerting us to the climate catastrophe as criminals and concentrate on those whose policies and corporations threaten the lives of our youth. It is the politicians and the CEO’s that should be in the dock.
(this is a slightly longer version of the previous article written for the Sheffield Telegraph)
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