Over two days on 29 and 30 January, the Court of Appeal will review the jail sentences imposed on 16 supporters of Just Stop Oil between July and September 2024: the Lord Walney 16.
The sentences include the five-year prison sentence imposed on Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, for taking part in a Zoom call to plan a protest against new oil and gas licences, and the two-year sentence passed on Phoebe Plummer after she threw soup at the glass covering Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.
Also among the group of 16 is Gaie Delap, the 78-year-old grandmother who was recalled to prison just before Christmas, because SERCO failed to provide a tag that could fit a woman’s wrist.
Known collectively as the ‘Lord’ Walney 16, all received shocking prison sentences only months after the disgraced John ‘Lord Walney’ Woodcock, paid oil and arms industry lobbyist, called for groups who oppose his clients’ interests, to be silenced and jailed.
Prior to Walney’s report in May 2024, jail sentences for peaceful protest in Britain remained extremely unusual.
The UN has previously described the sentences as ‘not acceptable in a democracy’.
The Lord Walney 16: a ‘deterrent effect’?
The rationale given for these sentences is ‘deterrence’, i.e. to prevent further nonviolent direct action, such as sitting in the road. But the sentences have in fact sparked a new wave of direct action under the banner, Free Political Prisoners, which unites diverse movements such as Palestine Action, Animal Rising, and Just Stop Oil.
The campaign has called for a meeting with Richard Hermer KC, the government’s Attorney General, to discuss political interference in the justice process by oil and arms industry lobbyists and the silencing and jailing of people for shining a light on corporate crimes.
In September and October 2024, more than 300 people occupied the roads outside Southwark Crown Court and the Ministry of Justice respectively. It is expected that more than 1,000 will occupy the Strand, blocking it to traffic, on 30 January between 12.30pm and 2pm.
Backers of the 16 planning to attend outside court include TV personalities Chris Packham and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, comedians. Mark Thomas and Robin Ince, artist Gavin Turk, politicians Caroline Lucas, Norman Baker and baroness Jenny Jones, and singer-songwriter Billy Bragg.
Solidarity actions are expected outside British embassies in a number of countries, from the Netherlands to Guyana.
Corruption at the heart of the cases
The concealment of evidence that threatens corporate profits is a recurring theme in the British political and legal systems.
The Post Office scandal arose from Fujitsu concealing the flaws in its Horizon programme. 72 people lost their lives in Grenfell Tower after Arconic suppressed evidence of the dangers of its cladding.
For decades Big Oil has waged campaigns of public misinformation over the known impacts of burning its products, using the same PR firms as the tobacco industry. Now its lobbyists are driving the silencing and repression of those exposing the industry’s lies.
The disgraced ‘Lord’ Walney resigned from the Labour Party in 2018 amid allegations of sexual misconduct which have still not been investigated.
In 2020, Boris Johnson appointed him to the House of Lords, and gave him the role of ‘Independent Adviser on Political Violence and Disruption’.
He used that role to obtain the following paid positions:
- Chair of the Purpose Defence Coalition, members of which include Leonardo, one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers, with “extensive links” to Israel’s military.
- Adviser to lobbyist Rud Pederson, clients of which include the oil and gas giant, Glencore
- Adviser to the Purpose Business Coalition, members of which include fossil fuel giant BP.
The terms of his engagement required him to disclose any conflicts of interest directly to the Home Office, but it is unclear whether he did so.
In May he published a report, falsely presented to the public and to parliament as ‘independent’. This called for groups such as Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil to be treated as organised criminals. He also suggested that jury acquittals in the trials of such cases were a ‘problem’ that needed to be addressed.
The surprise is not that Walney acts in his clients’ interests, but rather that the Labour government continues to present him to the public as ‘independent’, encouraging judges to act on his recommendations. He remains in post, despite a previous commitment by the Home Office to review his role by the end of October 2024.
The Lord Walney 16: symptomatic of a wider problem
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said:
The real question for the Court of Appeal is whether corruption of the legal process, by oil and arms industry lobbyists, is acceptable in a democracy
Lex Korte, Free Political Prisoners spokesperson, comments:
Oil barons and arms dealers are the worst amongst us. They kill and maim, poison and pollute for profit. They have bought our governments, legal systems and media outlets. They own the newspaper in your hand. They use it to tell you that the people standing up to them are the bad guys and deserve to be put in prison, for blocking a road or protecting a forest. They write our laws and tell our judges how to sentence their opponents. They threaten our democracy and our survival. They must be stopped.
Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Zoe Cohen said:
Every citizen should have the right to effective protest. It’s a crucial part of democracy.
These excessive sentences are designed to put people off protesting. But the laws that enable these sentences were written by think tanks that are funded by the corporations, oil money and the obscenely rich – the same actors who are responsible for brutal inequality and driving us to extinction. Who gave them the power to write our laws? It is shameful that the new government has not yet repealed these laws and restored the right of ordinary people to effective protest.
We can push back against this repression when we come together to peacefully resist.
Featured image supplied
