Draft Statement & Policy on the Police

The Camp for Climate Action believes that

a) That the police are part of the problem, not part of the solution;
illustrated by their classification of the Camp for Climate Action and
related protest groups as “Domestic Extremists”. The purpose of the
police is to protect the Government and the Corporations which are both
causing and failing to act on climate change. Thus we cannot accept their
legitimacy.

b) That engaging with the police is to be done solely for the purposes
of facilitating the protests of the Camp for Climate Action.

c) That the police have no role to play in our camps, and we reject
their interference on our right to protest insofar as it is physically
possible.

d) That the police have proven themselves to be untrustworthy in keeping
their word, and therefore our fundamental stance is to mistrust their
promises. We do not believe that they respect the right to protest.
While they are on the back foot over the events of Kingsnorth and the
G20, we do not believe these leopards have really changed their spots.

e) That dealing with the police is a distraction from the more important
role of the camp in tackling the root causes of climate change.

Thus we empower the relevant working groups as follows:

1) Legal: to continue their work exposing the abusive process of the
police; to continue monitoring and analysing the police; and to work
with media and police liaison working groups where messages are to be
distributed into the public domain.

2) Police Liasion to be the messengers between the Camp for Climate
Action and the Police, and to only negotiate on those issues where they
have been specifically mandated by the group they are working on behalf
of; and to actively facilitate actions and camps only where asked with
the purpose of minimizing impact of the police on CCA actions and camps.

3) Media: to report on the work of the liaison and legal groups, but to
be careful to not to provide legitimisation for the activities or
existence of the police as an institution. To emphasise that action
against the root causes of climate change is always going to be more
important than laws that defend the polluters and restrict protest.