Joe Woolfall, Liverpool Socialist Party
The British state arrests climate protesters at nearly three times the global average rate, a recent study has found. The UK is second only to Australia in arrest rates for climate-related protests. 17% of climate protests led to arrests in the UK vs. 20% in Australia; the global average is 6.7%.
Hundreds of activists involved have been arrested, with some facing lengthy prison sentences of years. Climate protesters, such as Just Stop Oil, have employed direct action tactics in recent years, such as disrupting sports events, slowly marching on and blocking roads, and stunts in art galleries.
We defend the right to protest. Climate protesters, who are fighting a just cause, have been targeted and treated unfairly to make an example of them to others thinking of taking action. The state will use these increasingly authoritarian measures to crack down on workers and other campaigners, too.
Capitalism is guilty
The fight against climate change cannot be separated from the fight against capitalism. Capitalism created the conditions for the impending catastrophe and is incapable of taking the action needed to prevent it. As such, any climate action should uphold the goal of winning over the working class – the only force in society that can overthrow capitalism – and it is working-class and poor people who will face the worst effects, in particular, the working class in the global south.
The fight for working-class, socialist action would be massively assisted if we had a new mass workers’ party to address interconnected issues like climate change, housing, poverty, and healthcare. It is capitalism which connects them. A new mass workers’ party would be key to fight back against big business interests in destroying our planet, just like it is necessary to fight back against NHS privatisation and the cuts to winter fuel payments.
