Despicaboil, the Metro newspaper called it; last Thursday’s trespass by green campaigners at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s north Yorkshire home. The tactic by protesters of breaching security to carry out a photogenic stunt is not going away; what does it mean for private security? Mark Rowe asks.
Greenpeace covered the Prime Minister’s house in black fabric in protest against new oil and gas licences for drilling in the North Sea. The charity says that its ‘activists are rigorously trained to avoid causing damage’. A year ago, ‘dodging security, 12 Greenpeace volunteers got onto the Navigator Terminals jetty on the River Thames’ to stop a tanker carrying 33,000 tonnes of Russian diesel from docking.
The charity is relentless in what it does. You remember the Greenpeace vessel that got boarded by the Russian authorities in 2013 and got a spell in prison before they were let out? Give your people a label (‘the Arctic 30’) and frame the story as not about whether it was a bright idea to risk detention, but a ‘brave action’ to inspire others. The lesson is learned – don’t mess with Russia – and stick to protesting in places that keep to the rules (the Arctic Sunrise once returned by the Russian authorities did no more than set sail to campaign against exploratory oil drilling in the Barents Sea by Norwegian company Statoil).
Commentators rage against such protests for numerous reasons: it makes the country (or the police or those carrying out site security) a laughing stock, or when Just Stop Oil protests block roads and bridges, or throw confetti at Wimbledon, or go on Ascot or Aintree racecourses, it inconveniences people and events. Why does Britain allow it to happen? Because we’re not Russia or some one- or no-party state where police can hold a plastic bag over your head with no come-back.
The fabric over the PM’s house does show up rather the pointlessness of any law that seeks to ban such activism from particular places: the Home Office had a go at combating protesters in the Public Order Act 2023, which included a new criminal offence for interfering with key national infrastructure, which covers any behaviour which prevents or significantly delays the operation of key infrastructure, such as airports, railways, printing presses, and oil and gas infrastructure; and the year before, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Neither appears to have deterred protesters; or, if they find the law an obstacle, they find a way around it, such as by ‘slow walking’ on roads; or paying as customers to sporting venues to then carry out a stunt.
Given that the Home Office is not going to legislate its way out of this issue, we’ve been left with Home Secretary Suella Braverman huffing and puffing (which at least serves to position her for law and order and against demonstrators).
Two things suggest such stunt protests will only carry on. First: the tactic is so successful – giving free publicity and an enjoyable time for those who carry out the deeds. It’s cheap, and needn’t actually require many people to carry out the stunt; Just Stop Oil hailed three for ‘onto hole 17 at the The Open in Royal Liverpool. They set off a smoke flare and threw orange powder paint on the green, before being removed by security.’ Second: partly for that reason, demonstrating groups are in an arms race, to attract publicity, donations and recruits; old hands such as Greenpeace have to respond to newcomers such as Extinction Rebellion and now Just Stop Oil.
Where does this leave private security? JSO protests can and do happen anywhere: to name recent ones on the JSO website: Hamleys toy store, Harrods, the Proms, the set of the Channel 4 satirical show The Last Leg; the think-tank Policy Exchange; the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. It’s not practical to keep demonstrators out of a venue or once in off a field of play, given the enormous perimeters, and in any case protesters holding tickets look like the thousands of spectators let in – even after a bag and even body search, but resourceful protesters can conceal powder and confetti. Smoke flares are a more general problem, let off by football fans at even quite small matches, in the National League, fifth tier, for instance, as featured in the March print edition of Professional Security Magazine.
Among recent cases chronicled by Just Stop Oil; Eddie Whittingham ‘was tackled by security’ on spraying a University of Exeter courtyard orange with a paint-loaded fire extinguisher. His ‘actions’ have included the interruption of the World Snooker Championship in April at Sheffield, where he climbed a snooker table at The Crucible Theatre and released orange-coloured powder.
The JSO website duly has a photo of Whittingham in mortar board and gown, restrained by a uniformed security officer wearing blue hygienic gloves. Wherever the protest, someone is around to capture it on video – because it’s easily done on your phone; and if something isn’t filmed, does it really happen?!
Private security has to do things right, then. As another university’s security manager told Professional Security recently, speaking not only of demos but when Security is protecting a gathering for a ‘controversial speaker’; the manager said he doesn’t watch the speaker or those demonstrating: “I watch my officers.” That’s because any unprofessional act, let alone violence, is sure to be recorded, and publicised by the protest group. It’s all grist to the mill; any protester manhandled becomes a martyr, it makes an otherwise routine act of protest more watchable and somehow more valid. And gives the protesters a further grievance, to maybe open a separate campaign about.
Given how protesters would take any ‘tackling’ by Security as a gift, the fact is, that Security actually does a professional job, because if not, we would hear about it. To single out the Wimbledon tennis fortnight; two security officers impeccably dressed in blazers carried a single male protester off an outside court. On the JSO website you could watch video with audio of the deed (again, JSO evidently had someone in the crowd, as part of the ‘action’, to take footage). As the angry spectators yelled rudely at the protester, it felt as if the officers were helping the man; sparing him embarrassment, or even assault from the crowd. It looked as if Security was the only friend the man had in the arena; it looked like good customer service.
Photo by Mark Rowe; Just Stop Oil poster, central London.
