‘ GET STUCK IN’
Priti Patel orders police to protect print plants after climate extremists sabotage newspaper distribution
HOME Secretary Priti Patel ordered the police to guard newspaper printing plants last night to try to prevent a repeat of the disruption environmental activists caused on Friday night – and told officers to ‘get stuck in’.
Ms Patel, who described the climate change protests by the Extinction Rebellion (XR) group as an ‘attack on democracy’, told forces to provide a police presence at all of the printing sites.
It came after XR delayed the distribution of hundreds of thousands of copies of national newspapers, including the Daily Mail, to shops yesterday by blocking access to printing presses at Broxbourne in Hertfordshire and Knowsley in Merseyside.
A Home Office source said: ‘Priti was furious.
She told the police to “get stuck in” to stop a second night of disruption.’
On Friday night, more than 100 protesters used vehicles and bamboo structures to block roads outside the works to highlight what they claimed was the media’s failure to ‘report on the climate and ecological emergency’. The presses print the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, the London Evening Standard, the Sun, Times, Sun on Sunday and Sunday Times, as well as the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph.
Yesterday, Hertfordshire Police said 50 were arrested at the demonstration in Broxbourne while another 30 were arrested in Merseyside.
The Metropolitan Police last night said it had handed out a total of £200,000 of fixed penalty fines to 20 Extinction Rebellion protesters for organising illegal gatherings of more than 30 people in breach of social distancing rules. Officers dished out the £10,000 fines at a number of protests to organisers wearing pink tabards, including those arranging the procession of a 20ft model boat named after activist Greta Thunberg which was halted on the edge of London.
Ms Patel said: ‘This attack on all of the free press impacted many workers going about their jobs. Overnight print workers, delivery drivers, wholesale workers and retail newsagents have faced delays and financial penalty. This is a matter for the police and the Home Office.’
The Federation of Independent Retailers said the protest left small businesses with ‘angry customers’ to deal with as well as affecting home delivery services.
Stuart Reddish, the body’s national president, said: ‘It means we are unable to get newspapers to our elderly and vulnerable customers.
‘Newsagents have played a critical role during Covid-19 in getting newspapers into the hands of readers and this is not helpful at a time when every sale counts.’
Industry sources told the Guardian that other newspaper publishers swiftly helped pick up capacity on their presses to limit the disruption to distribution. Local newspapers printed at the Broxbourne site were also affected, including East Anglian titles produced by the publisher Archant.
Under a banner reading ‘Free the truth’, XR tweeted that it was using the disruption to expose newspapers’ ‘failure to report on the climate and ecological emergency’ adding: ‘We’re going to filter out the lies and take the power back for a night.’
Alanna Byrne, from XR, said: ‘We will only tackle the climate and ecological emergency by breaking the traditional impasse of oppositional politics and coming together, despite our differences.’
The Society of Editors executive director, Ian Murray, called the protest ‘ foolish and anti- democratic’, adding: ‘The irony of protesters who wish to have their voices heard and their message listened to attempting to silence others by preventing the distribution of newspapers would be laughable if it was not so serious.
‘ You have to wonder whether those planning and taking part in these foolish actions understand anything from history; that controlling or shutting down free speech and an independent media is the first action of totalitarian regimes and dictators.’
A source at Sun and Times publisher News UK defended the company’s stance on climate, saying that Saturday’s Sun carried an article by David Attenborough on how to tackle the climate crisis.
The company was also moving to scrap all single-use plastic used to wrap its titles.
Although Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer failed to make a comment yesterday, Shadow International Trade Secretary Emily Thornberry said the protest was ‘very worrying’ amid concerns elderly people may miss out on newspaper deliveries.
Outside Buckingham Palace, other members of XR staged a twohour ‘danceathon’ to encourage the Royal Family to intervene on climate issues.