Extinction Rebellion Day 9

All last week the police were telling us to leave the London streets we were occupying and move to Trafalgar Square, the traditional place of protest in London. Trafalgar Square was already crowded with lots of activities - talks, training, music, a children's area and food distribution - and many of us were already using it as a meeting point. It didn't make sense to overcrowd it. 

When we didn't disperse, the police imposed a Section 14 notice on Whitehall. Section 14 of the Public Order Act gives police the power to impose conditions on assemblies 'to prevent serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community'. If you have been warned that a Section 14 notice covers the place you are in and you stay there, you can be arrested. So on Friday afternoon, rebels moved tents and belongings to St James Park. Then a Section 14 notice was imposed there and in the evening rain people decamped again, to Vauxhall.

At 8.30 last night the police ordered Trafalgar Square to be cleared by 9pm and called in the local council refuse service to remove belongings. About 20 MEPs abandoned a meeting in the Houses of Parliament and went to Trafalgar Square to defend the right to protest. Ellie Chowns was arrested. She tweeted, 'I believe the right to peaceful and lawful protest must always be upheld. In a democracy we have a right to peaceful protest.'

This morning the media reported that the police had imposed a revised Section 14 order over the whole of Greater London: 'any assembly linked to the Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’ ... must now cease their protests.'

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has so far defended police action and objected to the illegal activities of some rebels, issued a statement: 'I am seeking further information from senior officers about the operational decision to impose a section 14 order on the Extinction Rebellion Autumn Uprising – including at Trafalgar Square – and why this was necessary ... I've asked Met officers to find a way for those who want to protest the climate emergency to be able to do so legally and peacefully in London.'

So stakes are high and I was nervous on my way to London this morning, especially as the action I was planning to join, a day drawing attention to issues of food production and consumption, was outside MI5 in Millbank. Our little support group was down to three people today, one of whom has already been arrested and released under investigation. When we reached Millbank, things felt edgy. A group of people had parked a caravan at the edge of the road and were sitting on the road locked onto it. This rebel was on the roof. The police were keeping most other people on the pavement but as our numbers swelled and we spread onto the road the police pulled back. The atmosphere lightened.

Through the day there were excellent talks about food, notably from a small farmer, a fisheries expert (précis: it's OK to eat mussels and herring, it's not OK to eat farmed salmon or king prawns) and from someone involved the Refugee Community Kitchen which provides hot nourishing meals to refugees in northern France and to people living on the streets of London.

And we were fed.

I have few skills for this sort of action - I don't feel I know enough to talk much to groups (though I was amused to find myself outside MI5 asking people in the street, 'May I tell you more?'), I'm not keen to be arrested and I don't want to dress up in red. But I can sing in harmony and I know that singing with and to others creates strong bonds so I joined other members of the Glorious Rabble to sing to those being arrested, whether defiant or distressed.

By 4.30, the police had brought in a JCB to remove this and the other protester who had spent the day on top of vehicles. The police care and expertise in removing them, which is more normally used in rescuing people in danger, had me in tears. Why can our government not act coherently on the climate emergency they have declared, let us all go back to our normal lives and let the police get on with the worthwhile parts of their remit?