Barclays Bank AGM targeted by fossil fuels and human rights campaigners

 

Palestine Solidarity, Campaign Against Arms Trade, War on Want were drawing attention to Barclay's funding of arms companies and the subsequent use of those arms against Palestinians and other populations.

Palestine Solidarity said:

Militarised violence against the Palestinian people is a central feature of Israel’s occupation and apartheid regime – including the illegal Apartheid Wall, demolitions of Palestinian homes, brutal armed crackdowns on Palestinians protestors, and indiscriminate bombing campaigns of the Gaza Strip.

This system is maintained through the involvement of governments and business enterprises around the world. Financial institutions in the UK provide investment, loans, and other financial services to companies supplying Israel with weapons and military technology used to oppress Palestinians.

We’ve uncovered that Barclays Bank holds over £1 billion in shares, and provides over £3 billion in loans and underwriting to 9 companies whose weapons, components, and military technology have been used in Israel’s armed violence against Palestinians. By providing investment and financial services to these arms companies, Barclays facilitates the provision of weapons and technology for Israel’s militarised repression of Palestinians.

Alongside War on Want and Campaign Against Arms Trade, we're calling on Barclays Bank to #StopBankingOnApartheid

Climate campaigners were focusing on Barclay's investments in fossil fuels amidst a climate crisis.

This afternoon XR issued the following press release:

A major bank funding our extinction by pouring billions of pounds into new fossil fuel projects was left in disarray today as activists linked to a huge new climate crisis coalition disrupted their Annual General Meeting headquarters in the City of London.  

The board of directors faced constant interruption and challenge making it almost impossible for the AGM to continue. When Barclays chairman Nigel Higgins tried to outline the bank’s own climate commitments, a protester shouted “bullshit.”

At 11am teams of activists infiltrated the AGM of Europe’s biggest funder of fossil fuels, Barclays. [1]  A 70-strong Climate Choir sang a climate crisis version of the Spice Girls “Stop Right Now” to bank board members. Further disruption followed as other shareholders from Fossil Free London, with a Shakespearean condemnation of Barclays as being on the wrong side of history. 

Pulling out hidden ruffs and quills, they performed Shakespeare-based lines generated by ChatGPT about the bank’s funding of fossil fuels. Lines included: “The people thee harm, and our air thou pollute! And yet, there is more, I tell you this day, For Barclays is guilty in a vile way. Thou art on the wrong side of history, I say!”

At the action, Claude Fourcroy, of Money Rebellion, an off-shoot of Extinction Rebellion, said: “We need UK banks to stop funding fossil fuels today, but instead they are profiting from a rigged system where bankers sacrifice people and planet to make vast fortunes. This is why we have chosen to target these vastly wealthy and powerful establishments, in the interests of the public – because time for humanity and every other species on the planet is running out. 

“These banks boast about being part of the solution to the climate and ecological emergency while taking baby steps toward pulling funding for the worst fossil fuel criminals, making empty promises full of loopholes, and greenwashing on an industrial scale

“The government and Bank of England are failing to challenge or regulate the power of the banks. But people power can and will stop them. No more carbon bombs, no more genocide and no more displacement. Until the banks stop funding new fossil fuels, we will use every tool in the box to stop them, including building the biggest bank boycott in history to hit them where it hurts – in their pockets.”

The action against the big name financier came just a week after 200 environmental and social justice groups staged The Big One in the streets around Parliament.

The unprecedented event drew up to 100,000 protestors across the four days, to become the biggest single-location climate protest in British history. It included the delivery of two collective demands to stop all new fossil fuel projects and set up emergency citizens assemblies to manage a swift and just transition to a post-carbon future.

When the government failed to respond to the demands by a 5pm deadline on Monday April 24, 50 of the groups at the Big One, including Extinction Rebellion, Money Rebellion, Greenpeace and War on Want, vowed to step up their campaigns and actions.

Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell said: “These Money Rebellion actions disrupting financial power holders are just the start of an unprecedented movement of movements stepping up to challenge the corrupt elite in order to drive the urgent changes we need for survival of life on this planet.”

“In this new phase of Extinction Rebellion, we are connecting across groups to build a stronger climate alliance aimed at community resilience, inclusivity and fairness for all living beings. By linking up everyone who stands for a just and rapid response to the climate crisis we will create a formidable opposition. People are determined to challenge the misuse of power which threatens to bring an end to all life if we do not stop it.”

Barclays’ AGM was targeted by activists because the bank is the largest financier of fossil fuel expansion, heavily funding new fossil fuel exploration and drilling, while issuing net zero pledges. 

According to Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace since 2016 Barclays has been the worst bank in Europe for fossil fuel financing. In 2022 alone, the bank provided over $16 billion to coal, oil, and gas companies, and $190 billion since the Paris Agreement, making it the seventh largest fossil fuel funder in the world.

Barclays has said it is committed to aligning its financed emissions with the goals of the Paris Agreement, but in reality the bank has no policy dictating how it should reduce its financing of the oil and gas sector. Barclays is one of the only major UK banks  which has not started the process of restricting financing for new oil and gas, putting it at odds with competitors HSBC, Lloyds, and NatWest.

John Hilary: Recipe for Ruin - the TTIP

Responding to one of the commenters below, here is John  Hilary of War on Want on the TTIP

Local campaigners join in Cambodian garment workers protest

Yesterday, workers’ rights, anti-poverty, student groups and members of Brent Fightback joined together  to condemn the Cambodian government’s violent repression of garment workers’ strikes that led to four people being shot and killed  demanding an end to the repression, the recognition of unions’ right to strike and an increase in the minimum wage – the issue that sparked the workers’ protests.

The demonstration took place outside the Cambodian Embassy in Brondesbury Park.

The Cambodian garment workers’ strike began on 24 December, following a government announcement that the minimum wage would only rise by £9 to £60 a month, far short of workers’ demands for a living wage of £100 ($160) a month. The garment industry in Cambodia employs 700,000 people, 90% of whom are women, producing clothes for a huge range of UK high street companies, including H&M, Gap, Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Levis, who profit from the workers’ low pay.

On 2 January police blocked the route of a workers’ march, then attacked workers, union organisers and bystanders. The following day armed forces fired live ammunition at workers, killing at least four people and injuring many more. 23 people, including a 17 year old, have been arrested, many of whom were severely beaten prior to arrest. Recent reports suggest they are being held in a notorious detention centre some distance from Phnom Penh.

The demonstration, organised by Labour Behind the Label, War on Want, People and Planet and the Asian TNC Monitoring Network took place as part of an international week of action, with protests staged outside Cambodian embassies in Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey and the USA.

War on Want campaigner Murray Worthy said “The violence and repression used against demonstrators by the Cambodian government is completely unjustifiable. Resorting to violence and repression of legitimate strikes and workers’ struggles can never be the answer; the government must end the violence, release those arrested and launch an immediate independent investigation into the police attacks and shootings.”

Sam Maher from Labour Behind the Label said “These strikes were the last resort for workers whose legitimate demands for a higher minimum wage have been consistently ignored by the employers and brands alike. Workers in Cambodian garment factories face economic violence on a daily basis and are prisoners of a system that they cannot escape. This violence must also end.”

Rob Abrams from People & Planet said “This crack down on organised labour is done in the name of so-called ‘progress’, to ‘free’ markets from external pressures, but in Cambodia we see what this means in practise. It means that workers demanding something entirely uncontroversial, a living wage that would afford them the basic right of living comfortably, are treated worse than criminals. All the while, the message coming from multinational companies remains the same undemocratic mantra: ‘if you treat your workers with respect, we see that as a burden on our profits, and we will move our operations to someplace else’. This is a flagrant disregard of human rights, one we will keep working to end. "

H&M,  Gap, Marks and Spencer all have stores in the London Designer Outlet in Wembley and H&M have a distribution depot in North Wembley opposite the Bakerloo Line station.