David Allen Green

A critical and liberal look at law and policy

An Open Letter to the St Paul’s Protesters

What is the significance so far of "Occupy LSX"?

By David Allen Green Published 24 February 2012 18:39

Dear protesters,

I will be sorry to see you go. I work in the City of London, and I have walked past your tents most days since you camped in the churchyard of St Paul's Cathedral. Anyone who knows the area around the Cathedral will appreciate that you have not been any genuine obstruction. Indeed, one almost has to go out of one's way to be obstructed by you. No one walking from, say, Ludgate Hill, or St Paul's Tube, or from the Millennium Bridge is impeded. Your stay has made no real difference to the coming and goings of the City workers in that part of the City.

But you are now to be evicted. Your removal is inevitable, unless there is some unexpected intervention. The immediate environs of the Cathedral will return to their boring relative emptiness. The Cathedral itself will revert to its role as offering a peaceful and reflective place for tourists to be financially exploited for visiting what is sometimes a place of worship. The Dean and Chapter can again maximise their revenues without any worry of the protesters outside.

The bailiffs and the police may now come at any time, probably within the next few days. The City Of London's press officer refused to tell me exactly when. Will it be later today, I asked, but he said he would not speculate. So have the bailiffs already been, I then asked mischievously, and he still would not speculate. All one knows is that you have to remove your camp in a reasonable amount of time.

If the City is going to be sensible in the eviction operation, it should evict you during daylight. That makes it safer for everyone. And they should do it when there are few commuters, office workers, and tourists about; again, to minimise risk to third parties. For these reasons, I suspect eviction will probably be at the weekend. And coming in at dawn will perhaps mean few will be prepared to argue back or obstruct: sleepy-heads are relatively easy to evict.

On the other hand, the City may like the drama of a night-time eviction, or the media coverage of a week-day eviction, regardless of the safety of those who may be caught up. However, no one really knows.

Should you resist? Well, it is a decision for each of you. There is no genuine prospect of you defeating the coercive force which may be used against you. Your resistance, as they say, would be futile. And it would be a pity if there was any confrontation; the "Occupy" movement is about engagement, not violence. Marching off together at an time of your own choosing, with a brass band or something similar, would be a more fitting conclusion to your stay in the churchyard. And this is because you do have something to celebrate.

I understand you did not intend to camp outside the Cathedral. The target of the occupation was originally elsewhere in the City. But by choosing the Cathedral as a second or third resort, you unintentionally created a remarkable circumstance. Within days most of the cathedral clergy were shown up as buffoons, closing this great building on dramatic but spurious health and safety grounds before sheepishly re-opening. The undemocratic and opaque Corporation were forced to a decision to evict you in a bizarre closed session, demonstrating their contempt for transparency. Just by staying put you shoved those in power into uncomfortable and telling predicaments. It was refreshing to see how things were thrown into the air.

And you have been decent and polite throughout your stay. The camp has applied health and safety measures which show a genuine care for yourselves and those who could be affected by you. There has been sincere and often constructive engagement on various issues with bankers, lawyers and other City workers. You have been a standing reminder that the force of capitalism may not be what its champions say it is. In my opinion, you have been a useful if colourful corrective to the arrogance and financial vandalism of many who work in the Square Mile.

Nonetheless, you failed to convince the High Court and the Court of Appeal that your camp should stay in breach of the laws of the highway and of planning. That was unfortunate, as it was possibly open to the judges to say that a significant and influential protest like yours was just the sort of thing that Article 10 of the ECHR is there to protect against the indifferent enforcement of statute law. However, your arguments were presented and heard, even the contentions that smacked of complete legal woo-woo ("heirs of Magna Carta") were considered. But you lost. Of course, you may wish now to be civilly disobedient and take on the bailiffs. As long as you realise the consequences, it is a course you may like to take; but remember the Rule of Law is precarious and a valuable public good, for without it the powerful can abuse the power which they have, and you do not.

So the camp will soon disappear, but the ideals of "Occupy" will perhaps linger in the City of London. You have shown that anti-capitalistic and other progressive protests do not have to be one-day wonders with violent disorder and breathless commentary, but that they can be patient and respectful even in the face of those which you say are destroying our society and our planet. For a short while, you were even the "Shock of the New", causing some well-paid managers to make the first difficult decisions of their careers.

Your immediate shock value has now gone. It would be nice if you could stay a while longer as a reminder that capitalism gets things badly wrong. But the great achievement of "Occupy LSX" was never the physical camp. It was the realisation that those in power can be wrong-footed, and that their bullshit can be exposed, by those who are serious and thoughtful about promoting a better world. This can be done anywhere, and not just in a churchyard of a Cathedral.

David Allen Green is a City lawyer as well as legal correspondent of the New Statesman

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Tags: Occupy London

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41 comments

Wed, 2012-07-25 20:34 — olek (not verified)

prezent na chrzest
I can't believe this is an issue. You Brits have become so PC and soft. And you play rugby? Get a spine & worry about things that matter. BTW your country has some problems.

Tue, 2012-02-28 18:11 — Hugh Markey (not verified)

Nicola Horlicks summed up the Occupiers' Tent City as 'kind of messy' on today''s Daily Politics.
Communism had failed(miserably) and NIcola without using a hortatory tone pointed out what she thought was obvious that a properly conducted Capitalism was the only game in town.
On checking we find that Nicola went to quite a number of schools in the UK besides one in the US, acquiring the appropriate number of Os and As to gain entry to Oxford.
However, everybody knows Red China, not delftware, saved Capitalism. Not Gordon Brown despite Tory rumours to that effect. Of course the narcotics industries' investments helped but basically all those Chinese reds who were suckered into investing in the West saved international banking, hedge fund managers and all kinds of pack animals living off the carcass.
Naturally someone had to pay. Bernie Madoff for one. Yet according to Nicola it really was the fault of the US Security and Exchange Commission.
Capitalism is absoluly fabulous according to Nicola and the Daily Tory.

Sooper!

Fri, 2012-02-24 19:02 — Robert (not verified)

I remember, only a few days into the occupation at St Paul's, seeing awful condescending tweets from David Allen Green about protesters, clearly stating that he didn't support the what they were doing.

To see him now writing about how they have helped expose the city's "bullshit" is nothing short of cringeworthy.

In my view the guy is not much more than a posh hypocrite, with very poor instincts on almost all levels.

Fri, 2012-02-24 19:05 — Patrick Neylan (not verified)

If you're nostalgic, come over to Finsbury Square, where they don't show any sign of leaving. Apart from depriving local workers of their only public space, I'm not sure what they've achieved.

I did read all their postings. The only definite proposal they had was about gardening, so it's ironic that their only definite achievement has been to destroy the only bit of green space in the vicinity.

Fri, 2012-02-24 19:07 — foowzkaa

@Robert

May I point you to the following post, which I wrote within days of the occupation, where the bullshit of the Cathedral was exposed by (ahem) me: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2011/10/health-safet...

And as for posh: well you certainly have not heard my accent and are ignorant of my social background.

Tue, 2012-02-28 19:20 — Tommy Atkins (not verified)

"David Allen Green is a City lawyer as well as legal correspondent of the New Statesman."

And a bit of an arse if this article is anything to go by.

Malcolm Blackman (Anonymous UK)'s picture

Sun, 2012-02-26 17:22 — Malcolm Blackman (Anonymous UK) (not verified)

Thank you David. Our 4 months + at OLSX was arduous but very rewarding. We spent 1000's of hours gently 'waking up' the general public to the how's and why's of what 'crimes' had been perpetrated by the banks upon them. Anonymous (UK) held the frontline steadfastly on the topic of the UK Financial Crisis and were not swayed or diverted from this task. WE also introduced two men, Kevin Dowd & Gordon Kerr of Cobden Partners who eloquently explained to the lay man how the same bankers, corporates and government officials pulled off this immoral whack job on the UK's citizens BUT more importantly they explained HOW to solve the crisis. We hope that the British government will ACT ON THIS INFORMATION and appoint the afore mentioned, along with Steve Baker MP for Wycombe as Finance Tsars to investigate the 'lawful Deceit' and furthermore that they untie the hands of the Metropolitan Police Force so as prosecutions and jail time can be forthcoming in the most serious cases. Taking back a knighthood is an insult to the people, a lip service. It is not enough. Link to Kevin and Davids presentation on the Steps of St Paul's below.

http://youtu.be/UrStga2SUzE

Fri, 2012-02-24 19:30 — Adam Jung (not verified)

Appreciate the letter Mr. Green. While the occupation outside St. Paul's brought attention to the inherent problems with capitalism, more importantly it highlighted the manufactured flaws in Britain's "democracy." This occupation may be drawing to a close but Occupy, and the movements that follow, are just beginning. A summer full of pomp and circumstance during a record high of youth unemployment, inaccessible higher education fees, and a triple dipping recession may do more than Occupy ever could to highlight the misplaced priorities of the state. But Occupy will continue to organize and be prepare the spaces for the people to fight back.

Tue, 2012-02-28 20:09 — Tox (not verified)

Well.. if they have had any idea instead of just being there to "occupy" maybe they would have achieved something...

Now they are gone, to the dustbin of history, a footnote in history... the 99% who counted for nothing.

Occupy London SX... calling for change but unable to express what change, what future or even what they were for.

At last Laury Penny will be happy... it made her more famous...

Sat, 2012-02-25 16:07 — MICHAEL TAGGART (not verified)

I agree with most of the sentiment in David's letter, particularly that this episode has show up the church personnel, if anyone, in a bad light. I wrote about it for the Evening Standard (reprinted here: http://www.mrm-london.com/2011/10/chaos-reigns-at-the-cathedral).

Fri, 2012-02-24 19:57 — Nathan (not verified)

@Robert

David Allen Green in "Man Changes Mind" shocker

Fri, 2012-02-24 20:19 — David (not verified)

Whilst I may agree with many (if not all) of the points that occupy was trying to raise, I simply do not agree with the occupation of any cathedral or church grounds. Cathedral grounds seem such a soft target, if they really wanted to make a point they would have stayed in the centre of the city financial district. It smacks of them not being passionate in their beliefs in the slightest. They just want to be known as infamous without really doing anything at all.
How has the cathedral become the bad guy in all of this, the protesters have lost sight of what they were protesting about in the first place.

Sat, 2012-02-25 16:43 — hello (not verified)

@test You are a moron.Bet you are the kind of person that always says "... deserves to be shot", well the only people that deserve to be shot are people who say that other people deserve to be shot. I understand that saying this is a shootable offence but somebody had to bloody say it.

Fri, 2012-02-24 20:26 — Anon (not verified)

David - Come and join us to resist eviction. If your words are true then we shall see you soon.

Fri, 2012-02-24 20:31 — Frankie D. (not verified)

@David

Have you not been paying attention, or even read the above article? Occupt LSX wanted to camp at Paternoster Square, but were prevented from doing this by police(for some reason acting as provate security guards)

Sat, 2012-02-25 17:41 — Daniel Ashman (not verified)

I apreciate everyones concern for our well fare at St Pauls. It is important to understand we were never asking permission. We have come here for changes to the mechanistic nature of the finance sector.
I was a litigant in person in the eviction case it became clear that the rule of law has no power to deal with authority and corporate power. As someone who was there and presented evidence it is clear that the Justice system must be led by the will of the people. All that I presented was considered belief not fact. I presented reports for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Tax Justice Network, Papers on Corporate Lobbying, London school of economics on corporate activity, Profiteering by killing innoccent civilians . In short I was presenting the court with bribary, theft, fraud and murder on a massive scale. The fact that the court did not recognise these as crimes is a crime in itself. We are situated next door to a lot of these institutional bases. Sad and a betrayal that the law will not inable such processes to remedy the aflictions that are caused by such processes. This is not about PR this is about the people we love, the people we do not know and the future generations to come. So I will stay and face those who will attempt to stop it.

Fri, 2012-02-24 21:20 — Jyno (not verified)

@Robert

I met David at Occupy in the legal tent during the early days of the occupation (whilst the Cathedral was shut to be precise).

He was supportive and he neither acted nor sounded posh during brief conversation I had with him.

Sun, 2012-02-26 20:19 — Phil J (not verified)

I used to walk past St Paul's before Occupy went there, but changed my route due to the restricted right of way resulting. Went there today and they were blocking the point outside M&S even more than usual. If Mr Green does not notice this then I wonder if he does actually walk past there. The 1% blocking the 99%. Notice now a lot more people have changed their route. Yes they are a tourist attraction for some, but the numbers of tourists there are far fewer than before they were there.

Fri, 2012-02-24 21:25 — David (not verified)

@Frankie that was exactly my point. They lack the courage of their conviction, hense me stating that the cathedral was a soft target.

Fri, 2012-02-24 21:35 — rob (not verified)

@ Robert 18.02

Methinks you were thinking of Louise Mensch. Can't think of how you made that error!

Sat, 2012-02-25 18:17 — PhilDuval

I fear those attacking the protesters are betraying their own cultural prejudices. Millions of people in this country are sick of the power the financial 'industry' has over this country and they are disgusted that the services used by ordinary people have to be closed to pay for the bank bailouts. This outrage cuts across the political spectrum more than our Tory trolls would like to have us think. BUT what is most frustrating of all is the hatred that is lumped on those who make a commitment no matter how small to challenge this state of affairs.

Insults on here range from the protesters' social background to whether they should have stayed on church ground. I don't know what the social class these people come from but would it really matter if they WERE middle class? Does that preclude them from having a voice? And what would the reaction be if they working class people with regional accents? What would the rhetoric be then? That they were work-shy, feckless and too ignorant to understand a corrupt power system when they see one. Other posters have replied to the church ground gambit and it's worth remembering that a senior cleric at St Paul's resigned in support of Occupy.

If anything the financial crisis has illustrated that we are also living through a crisis of democracy - I don't remember there being a debate as to whether we should bail out fraudulent banks in 2008. We weren't even told the true nature of the crisis - that it was a solvency crisis rather than a 'liquidity' crisis. Iceland showed that an alternative remedy was possible - ring fence ordinary depositors, let the speculators go to the wall and nationalise what was left to keep lending going. It has taken them a while to recover but recover they are. Unemployment is down and there is growth.

What have Occupy achieved? Quite a lot actually. They have kept the crime of the bank bailouts in the mind of the public and have gone some way to demonstrating how Tories have portrayed a crisis of private banks as a crisis of sovereign borrowing. They have received significant (and not unfavourable) coverage in one of the bibles of the City and may have helped provide the impetus for the FT's 'Capitalism in crisis' series:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99cf86aa-4e66-11e1-aa0b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/fa644c86-428a-11e1-97b1-00144feab49a.html#axzz...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9b69787a-3ab8-11e1-a756-00144feabdc0.html#axzz...

http://www.ft.com/indepth/capitalism-in-crisis

I agree with the article's author that they should leave with their heads held high and prepare for future struggles to come. For surely they will - the banks are sitting on toxic liabilities they cannot hope to recoup. Interbank lending is already beginning to dry up because they all know that they are all holding assets which are worth nowhere near what they claim they are and as such are not acceptable as collateral.

And next time there won't be the money to save them. So it'll be us vs them.

Fri, 2012-02-24 21:39 — Lesley (not verified)

I have walked past the occupy site a few times in the last few weeks and feel far less intimidated by their presence than by the cathedral authorities whose tills at the door tell me they don't want me to enter their cathedral unless I pay.
The surrounding area of the cathedral is so bare and windswept that I have always had no idea it was really part of the cathedral grounds. Well done to occupy for drawing attention to who owns what around the cathedral and making clear have disinterested in people the cathedral really are.

Fri, 2012-02-24 21:51 — MC (not verified)

Yeah actually, David, They were kettled in all night by police and their vans at the cathedral after the paternoster square attempt, and decided to put down the tents because it was cold. The rest is history.

It seems like youre annoyed the church was dragged into this because you are a religious man hmm? In that case, it is you who lack the courage of your religious convictions by saying that the church shouldnt get involved in matters of social justice. Well done.

Wed, 2012-02-29 18:55 — foowzkaa

@ Fergus

No, it didn't.

Sat, 2012-02-25 19:17 — stormcloud (not verified)

Here here philduval!!

Sat, 2012-02-25 19:22 — chris (not verified)

I really would believe this if i had not seen the corruption within our justice system. To say it is rampant, is in my opinion a gross understatement of the situation.

Fri, 2012-02-24 23:26 — test (not verified)

Capitalism may get things badly wrong, but never as blindly and persistently wrong as middle-class bobo lefties. What has Occupy achieved, except giving a few twenty-somethings with iPads the warm feeling that they're the oppressed proletariat really sticking it to The Man? How many working-class men and women in this country support a bunch of pretentious students playing street theatre and drivelling on at their General Assemblies - note, Laurie Penny doesn't bloody count.

Screw these middle-class tossers. The only half-decent thing about them is diverting the Leader of the Labour Party, immature student-union-hack runt that he is, down their puerile blind alley with them.

Fri, 2012-02-24 23:57 — David (not verified)

@MC I can assure you I am not a religious man. I was last in church as a child. I quite simply don't understand how the cathedral has become the bad guy. I feel the protesters (or possibly the people commenting on behalf of the protesters) have lost sight of why they are protesting.

Wed, 2012-02-29 10:28 — SMK (not verified)

“So the camp will soon disappear, but the ideals of "Occupy" will perhaps linger in the City of London”.

The Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK) is a charity that supports campaigners to be more effective. Having worked with literally thousands of campaigners over the past few years, one of the things we see is that effective campaign messages can continue to resonate in the public imagination long after the campaign itself ends.

The camp has now disappeared but the ideals of Occupy have, at the very least, stirred discussion. How long the discussion will linger is a well-placed question.

David Allen Green recognises the role the Occupy movement has played in opening up public debate. Indeed, David touches on the very fact that this movement even encouraged the Church of England to discuss and question their own stand towards social justice.

Not just Londoners have encountered these Occupy settlements. They cropped up nationwide and, up and down the country, people have consequently been moved into discussion, even when they don’t necessarily agree with Occupy’s tactics.

The very fact that people have been motivated to write about, discuss and debate the impact of Occupy shows their campaign has encouraged a new discourse to open up. This is a in itself a key achievement of successful and effective campaigning.

Monday night saw the removal of the Occupy protestors from St Paul’s Cathedral. Nonetheless, Occupy London is part of a larger global movement, which continues to question and challenge the current social, economic and political climate. It will be interesting to see how long this discussion will remain in the City of London, how long these ideals will linger.

Sun, 2012-03-04 15:22 — Sonia (not verified)

Hi David,

I must strongly disagree about the success of Occupy lSX not being the physical camp!!

How aware are you of the people living on camp and what they were doing?! I don't believe you really met anyone except for the external PR, the courthouse and when there was an event on Occupy law.

Correct me if I am wrong!!!

Wed, 2012-02-29 11:50 — Fergus Pickering (not verified)

What I want to know is whether the place smelled of shit. Some people said it did. Were they lying? Lots of you have been there so you can tell me.

Tue, 2012-02-28 12:42 — Sciamachy

Kinda sad to see they did come at stupid o'clock in the morning to evict them.

Sun, 2012-02-26 06:55 — Vas (not verified)

Occupy London!
http://vimeo.com/35803378

Sun, 2012-02-26 07:34 — historybuff

Bearing in mind the Church's stand against gay clergy and gay marriage, I would like to see the porotesters move their demonstration inside the cathedral with banners that read "Tax the Church" and "Disestablishment Now!". The C of E has for too long been a bulwark of reactionary resistance to equality for women and sexual minorities, and it's failure to accept equal rights now means that tit is no longer entitled to the political, legal and tax privileges that come with it's current status.

Wed, 2012-02-29 22:26 — Mrs Nobody

Occupy are the conscience of the nation. Shame the same can't be said of the Church.

Mon, 2012-02-27 11:42 — foowzkaa

Could a "Jill of Kent" please email me at jackofkent @ gmail . com.

Cheers.

Sat, 2012-02-25 09:29 — Phil (not verified)

It seems to me that the protesters and their tents are more of a tourist attraction than the cathedral. I passed yesterday and most cameras were pointed at the tents from the cathederal steps. The protesters have certainly showed up 'bullshit' but perhaps it is time for them to move together without confrontation.

http://twitter.com/#!/Rakehell_Obi's picture

Mon, 2012-02-27 11:57 — http://twitter.com/#!/Rakehell_Obi (not verified)

It seems that the poster Phil J is a person who prefers to post falsehood.

The path between Juxon House and the OccupyLSX Camp is wide enough to drive a small car, if it were not for the bollards set up by the local authorities.

You would only have difficulty once the car gets past the space between the Chapter House and the camp.

The path between the Churchyard and Paternoster House is reportedly 3.8 mtrs wide and is narrower than the walkways OccupyLSX Campers set up.

Sun, 2012-02-26 09:49 — jo publique (not verified)

@PhilDuval, well said, I am sick to death of the cliched attacks and nasty comments aimed at the Occupiers, who have the guts and committment to make a stand against corruption greed and injustice. My message to all Occupiers is a humble 'Thank you'

Mon, 2012-02-27 15:22 — Hmm...another crock (not verified)

I can only assume that you haven't really looked around the camp, and that if you researched a bit more thoroughly you might have seen that Occupy themselves failed to refute any of the evidence, instead declaring that their opinions are more important. The camp is, and always has been, a complete dump. They have, and still do, act like they are above the law.

Now you may think, like Occupy, that suffering by those who live and work around the Cathedral is outbalanced by their so-called valuable contribution to society. However, being educated and of sound-mind (unlike many of the permanent inhabitants) I realise that they don't have a clue what they are talking about, they have not created one cohesive argument, and that actually, if you spend some time down there, they don't actually protest! As far as I'm concerned protesting isn't having an opinion in your head and then keeping it to yourself when you're drinking your special brew, kicking a football around and pissing up the Cathedral. So frankly, their removal is the best news in ages, second only to the resignation of self-indulgent, media whore Giles Fraser, who is a hypocrite of biblical (excuse the pun)proportions and is no loss to anyone.

Sun, 2012-02-26 12:48 — Hugh Markey (not verified)

The City bankers are canny enough not to carry out their business in the environs of the Temple.
Otherwise the parallel might be so blatant that the Truly Righteous Occupiers would be applauded for kicking ass and clearing a place of worship clean of money lenders;hedge fund operators and speculators.
New Testament Judgement