Overnight on 7 August, cops arrested 22 activists mobilising for a climate camp at Drax Power Station in Yorkshire. That is, the very night far-right fascists planned attacks against asylum support centres across the UK, cops were pouring their energies into preventing a peaceful protest against a climate-wrecking corporation.
Did someone mention something about two-tier policing?
Protecting the powerful – like Drax
Drax is an energy company which makes its money from a power station near Selby, in Yorkshire.
The company has a habit of boasting its green credentials, claiming that its wood-burning ‘biomass’ power station produces renewable energy. This allows them to receive huge pubic subsidies. However, as the Canary has consistently highlighted, Drax is a serial green-washer.
Drax burns more trees than any other power station in the world. It is also the UK’s largest single source of carbon emissions. Both Drax and the government claim that the emissions ‘don’t count’ because the trees are grown in other countries, and because one day far in the future another tree will store that carbon. Obviously, that is absolutely insane.
Notably, there’s nothing remotely ‘renewable’ about its wood pellet-burning operation. Instead, repeated nonprofit investigations have shown the devastating environmental impacts of Drax’s core business activities. In March, Biofuelwatch and Portuguese nonprofit NGO ZERO exposed how:
Drax is sourcing wood pellets for its Yorkshire power plant from a nature reserve in Portugal.
More specifically, Drax is the biggest customer of Pinewells pellet plant in Portugal. Their investigation found that Pinewells has been sourcing trees from clearcuts in the mountainous Serra da Lousã nature reserve. The EU designated it a Natura 2000 site in 2008, under the EU Habitats Directive. Natura 2000 sites form an ecological network across Europe to protect wild animals, plants, and habitats of conservation importance.
All this is to say that the company is chief among UK’s big polluters. It’s why climate activists have been gearing up to take on the greenwashing energy giant.
Two-tier policing
Reclaim the Power decided to target Drax with an action camp from the 8-13 August. Unfortunately, before the protest could even begin North Yorkshire police swooped in and arrested 22 activists.
As with any decent protest – they were in the process of transporting disabled ramps and toilets to make sure the site was accessible. Maybe the idea of an accessible protest was too much for North Yorkshire police to comprehend?
Reclaim the Power said:
Police actions this morning send the clear message that protecting the peace and quiet of Drax — who take £1.7 million a day in subsidies and hand it to shareholders as ‘profit’ — is more important than protecting the lives and livelihoods of people whose taxes pay those very subsidies.
Racist violence is happening Nationwide. Black and Brown communities are under attack with fire and bricks and the police have made the unfathomable decision to divert resources away from those communities to arrest 22 people taking equipment to make a peaceful climate protest safe and accessible.
The police claim they are ‘not against protest but against crime’, but their actions show otherwise. In Yorkshire this morning, police prioritised locating and arresting people suspected of organising peaceful protest with tents, toilets and track for wheelchairs over locating and arresting people who are actually organising, far right riots with bricks, knives and other weapons.
A protester who has been helping to coordinate the camp told the Canary that North Yorkshire Police are essentially acting as Drax’s own private security firm. Repeatedly they said they are not opposed to peaceful protests. However, they have still taken away the kit the protesters were using to ensure the camp was both peaceful and safe. Essentially, they are being silenced for speaking out against greenwashing.
Reclaim the Power told the Canary that:
After police seized key infrastructure the camp is now cancelled
So Police forces up and down the country struggle to cope with huge levels of violence – while North Yorkshire Police are choosing to protect a powerful company who made over £1bn in profits in 2023 alone.
What is Drax afraid of?
Last month, Drax secured a high court injunction against potential future protesters at its site. Drax received a tip off from the police and then requested the courts protection – which the court granted.
However, the injunction does not cover a ‘strip of land’ which they had marked out for the peaceful protest.
Currently, taxpayers subsidise Drax by nearly £2m a day, even though it made over £1b in profits in 2023. Their profits come from our energy bills – which are sky-high at the moment. This means that British people are essentially paying twice. We have a new government, – which means Drax is currently trying to renew their subsidies, so the time is crucial in encouraging our government to put money into genuine green energy solutions like wind, solar and hydropower, not scams like Drax. However, and maybe unsurprisingly, the Labour Party have accepted donations from the company in the past.
Profit before planet?
Subsidising Drax means that vast sums of public money are funding a project that is actively fuelling the climate crisis, and causing huge harm to human life and the planet. There is a chance to stop this – but we cannot afford to wait.
If the far-right rioters were really that bothered about wasting tax payers money – they would be campaigning for places like Drax to be saving the tax payers money.
As ever, the cops are protecting the climate wrecking corporations, because in reality they protect the interests of the state – not the public. If they were truly there to serve the public, they wouldn’t be cracking down on peaceful protesters trying to save the planet from ecological breakdown.
Feature image via Skill Builder/Youtube
