The atmosphere was buoyant, the sun was shining and we were all getting into the festival spirit, complete with face painting, huge games of snakes and ladders and upbeat drum music. Admittedly, it was a little bit odd that all this was taking place not in a field in Somerset, but on a street deep in the city of London, Bishopsgate to be precise, but there was no warning at all of the anger and frustration to come. The police had initially made attempts to stop the camp being set up – the first tents unveiled were immediately confiscated and their owners hauled off, but the sheer scale of the camp – combined no doubt with the other heavily policed events of the day - meant that the men in florescent jackets soon surrendered the street, making do with forming a loose cordon at either end of the road which stopped the camp from spreading. This suited both groups fine. The camp was established, the police could see that it wasn’t going to attempt to sprawl outwards, and people were free to come and go as they pleased.

The location of the camp had been chosen to be outside the European Climate Exchange, where 80% of the carbon emissions trading in Europe takes place. Carbon emissions trading has been established as a way for those in industrialized countries to avoiding their own emissions reduction targets by trading “carbon credits” either between countries or between companies. It’s a way for polluters to carry on with “business as usual” while reducing industrialisation in developing countries. Instead of encouraging cleaner energy sources, it promotes the status quo, but as the banner at the entrance to Bishopsgate read “Nature doesn’t do bailouts”. That’s why the camp was there in protest. However, despite people being justifiably angry at this political greenwashing, there was no violence in the air – just music and laughter.
 

This all changed just after 7pm. I was waiting for a mate near to one of the police lines when they suddenly, and without warning, locked ranks and marched forwards, pushing me and others out of the way until they had sealed off the end of the road. At first I assumed it was a temporary measure. I thought the police might be trying to clear off that end of the pavement. I thought that soon we would be allowed to come and go again. I thought that there was some sort of guiding logic to the police’s actions. I was wrong.

What I hadn’t seen were the riot police running down the side streets to seal the exits. What you can see in the video, attached to this blog on the left of your screen, is the police at the other end of the street, wielding batons to force campers back with their shields and trampling anyone who got in their way. So that was that, bar a few more attempts by the police to take more ground, which was met, to their apparent dismay, not by arrestable rioters but by people calmly sitting down and raising their hands above their heads.

My mate, and anyone else who happened to be outside the cordon at 7pm, was not allowed in. Anyone who was inside at 7pm was not allowed out. It was difficult to fathom exactly why the police did this, and an explanation certainly was not forthcoming from them. At one point we were told that we were being held for two hours, but 9pm came and went with no change in our situation. While some of those trapped inside were planning on spending the night there, many were not – and indeed even a lot those who had planned to stay had been left without shelter when the police had first surged in, trampling tents and leaving sleeping bags and other possessions behind their newly formed wall. Apparently they call the tactic ‘kettling’. That’s right. The police’s tactic for dealing with peaceful protestors is modeled on an appliance which makes calm substances boil. What exactly is their job, again? The only rationale I could imagine for the police’s actions is that it was simply the only thing they could do – they knew that they could not remove everyone, so they decided to make the situation as unpleasant as possible for everyone there – an arbitrary display of their power, and perhaps an attempt to discourage future protest. It that was the aim, it will not have worked. As people adjusted to their new situation the party spirit returned. Even by the time people were eventually allowed to start trickling home, at gone 11.30, the band still played on.

Photography by Patch Cordwell, videotographer with Arts London News.