Red Bird #6 | Just Stop Standing There?
Red Bird •It has been established practice for significant sections of the climate movement in Britain to plan actions which guarantee arrest. You act and then wait to be arrested. This was central to XR and still dominates in the groups which followed it, like Just Stop Oil and This is Rigged.
This practice is known as the ‘accountable action’ and has two arguments in its favour. One, that by being ‘accountable’ by showing your face, allowing yourself to be identified and arrested, you inspire others to be mobilised, breaking down some of the distinction between ‘protestors’ and the ‘general public’. Two, that in bringing our charges to court, putting forward what we know about ecological breakdown, we could publicise our campaigns and undermine the business as usual of the British state.
We think the terrain has shifted, and these arguments no longer hold, if they ever did. You can see it in the sentencing of Phoebe and Anna to over two years in jail for throwing soup, and you can see it in the changing tactics of police and judiciary.
The strategy for most major mobilisations in recent years starts with a small group doing exceptionally ‘loud’ actions – soup on the painting, running on the football pitch, the snooker chalking. This, in turn, gets media attention, and lights a flare to people to attend one of the pre-established briefing and mobilisation meetings/trainings. This new layer of people are then mobilised in larger ‘rebellions’, waves of road blocks or marches, and other bigger moments.
There are strengths and weaknesses to this model, but the state now understands the model, and attempts to drive a wedge into it. Police disrupt the welcome events where people are recruited, using the lower barriers for ‘conspiracy’ offences to arrest or detain those who attend. The initial core of people taking action, such as the soup throwers, receive massive sentences, out of scale with the initial expected risk of disrupting a public event or gallery.
Judges are increasingly undermining any semblance of fair trial by removing defences and instructing juries to effectively find defendants guilty.
We also need to reflect on the responses from the wider population. Despite notable acquitals and cases, taking our cases to the court has not necessarily led to a widening of our campaigns. We are seeing declining returns from the spectacular actions against sporting and artistic spaces, which seem only to force people to ‘take sides’, with a lot of people not ending up on ‘ours’. We seem to be doing more, under greater pressure, with less people – the model cannot hold.
If we do not shift tactics, the full force of the state will continue to isolate and repress us.
What’s the alternative?
Why intentionally get arrested and potentially imprisoned, stopping you from taking action, when by not getting caught you have the potential to take action repeatedly and retain your freedom?
If you can, conceal your identity and plan a getaway for after you take action.
It massively reduces unnecessary risk. Yes, ‘unaccountable’ action requires a bit more caution, more digital security, less chatting in the pub. However, we argue it is a better way to build mass militancy.
We need to go from being a subculture of resistance to building an all-out culture of resistance, and this means actions where we aim to be safe at the end of the day, and where we recognise a police van as a fundamentally unsafe place for almost all of us.
There can still be open meetings, trainings, events where learning happens and trust is built. And more disruption can be achieved in this way, because the activists involved stay free to act again another day.
These are not new ideas. Since the 1980s, Earth First! have been sabotaging fossil infrastructure in small groups, but they have remained a minority strand of the climate movement.
This year, Palestine Action have upscaled this type of action: windows of various sites get smashed at night, paint sprayed inside the buildings, Barclays ATMs get wrecked, and the activists get away without arrest. A stronger movement results.
This is not to say ‘don’t do actions if there is no escape route’ – the important work of Palestine Actionin occupying and smashing arms factories and their supporters is an example of where escape is not always available for maximum disruption. However, waiting around should be a last resort, not a given.
It is of course important to be accountable to the comrades we fight alongside. The “unaccountable” in “unaccountable direct action” has nothing to do with what we mean when we say accountability towards our friends and comrades. ‘Accountability’ to the police, carceral system and mainstream media, just gifts them the tools to harm our ability to organise, and grossly underestimates the hostility of the state toward our movements. We must defend ourselves from its institutions while we organise to abolish them.
Throughout our organising, we need to emphasise prisoner solidarity and think seriously about steps toward prison abolition. We need to urgently build mass support for the political prisoners currently being detained by the British state for their opposition to genocide and ecological breakdown. In the meantime, we should be sharp enough to not keep adding to their number.
Our thoughts and our hearts are with comrades currently locked up or facing trial.
– Daire and Ginger
ACTION ROUNDUP
Youth Demand, on October 9th, succeeded in placing an image of a Palestinian mother and child over the Picasso work ‘Motherhood’.
On the eve of October 7th, a coordinated autonomous action saw 4 Barclays ATMs put out of service across Glasgow, for Palestine.
Allianz, major insurer of companies complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, had ten offices targetted on October 8th by supporters of Palestine Action. This included occupations, spraying paint and smashing windows.
October 10th was a workplace day of action for Palestine, called by Stop the War, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and others. Many workers and students staged walkouts of their workplaces and universities.
On October 1st, activists with Axe Drax, crashed the Reuters ‘Sustainability Awards’, where companies’ meagre sustainability initiatives get lauded whilst they engage in climate destruction. Activists covered the entrance banner to read ‘Greenwashing Awards’ and chanted in the lobby.
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