An environmentalist who advised the monarch for 30 years, Porritt speaks to media following his arrest over supporting Palestine Action.
London, United Kingdom – Jonathon Porritt, a 75-year-old Oxford-educated environmentalist, is among the hundreds of people that the UK has cracked down on over their support of Palestine Action.
He was arrested and charged earlier this month, under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, for holding up a sign at a rally decrying the government’s decision to outlaw the protest group.
“I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” read the cardboard placard that he, and many of the 520 others arrested, raised.
His bail hearing is scheduled for late October.
But Porritt is not a hardened criminal.
He spent 30 years advising the king on environmental issues when the monarch held the Prince of Wales title. He has also chaired a sustainable development commission set up by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and throughout his career has worked in politics, academia and directed Friends of the Earth. In 2000, he was awarded a CBE, a high-ranking order, for services to environmental protection.
media spoke to Porritt about his activism, Palestine, the role of business and the effect of weapons manufacturing on climate change.
media: As the crisis in Gaza worsens, you have urged the UK to take action to stop Israel’s onslaught. With more than 700 other business leaders, you recently called for targeted sanctions against those accused of violating international law, including war crimes. Does that include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, since he is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court?
media: On an individual level, many people appalled at Israel’s conduct in Gaza have joined a campaign to boycott Israeli goods, in an attempt at hitting the economy that fuels the war. Is this an effective way to stem the violence?
Porritt: It is something I do on an individual level. And this is purely personal, but I would be deeply unhappy buying anything exported into the UK from Israel. I feel that the government of Israel at the moment and its track record in terms of the way it’s dealt with the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is so repugnant to me personally that I feel uncomfortable supporting the economic standing of that country, so that’s my own personal choice.
I don’t go out of my way to suggest that everybody needs to do that.
I think lifestyle decisions are really important, ethical decisions are really important, but do they actually change very much? Probably not, is the reality, and an awful lot of people simply don’t know the issues behind these choices.
media: Your arrest earlier this month made headlines. What do you think figures such as King Charles and Tony Blair, who you’ve worked with, would make of your radical activism?
Porritt: I was comfortable taking on establishment roles as chair of the commission [launched by Blair], for instance, [and] helping to set up the Prince of Wales’s business and sustainability programme, all that kind of stuff. But my life started as an activist in the Green Party and in Friends of the Earth, so they probably always knew that I was more predisposed to that tactical route than to the inside track that I nonetheless spent 30 years pursuing.
media: With several wars raging, is the link between militaries and weapons companies, which are major carbon polluters, and climate change being talked about enough?
And then, then you look at the environmental impacts of all of that, of course, including the CO2 footprint of vast increases in expenditure on arms, and it’s just the worst possible way of trying to increase security for people in their own country – to make these hugely carbon-intensive and destructive investments and yet more weapons of mass destruction.
media: The UK has proscribed Palestine Action as a terror organisation, but its backers say outlawing the group is a way to silence dissent as Israel wages war in Gaza. It is now legally challenging the proscription. What does Palestine Action stand for, in your view?
Porritt: What Palestine Action actually stands for is a readiness to use violence against property as part of its campaigning tactics against, in particular, those arms companies [that are] deeply complicit in the continuing genocide in Gaza. They see as being proportionate when set against the devastation going on in Gaza.
That choice about tactics is morally based, wholly defensible … and in no way indicative of a formally designated terrorist organisation.
In the last few years, there’s been an astonishing legal crackdown on basic rights in this country, particularly the right to the freedom of speech and the right to freedom to protest
The designation as a terrorist organisation … is to try and silence Palestine Action. That’s where I come back to the now incontrovertible proof of the UK government’s complicity in this genocide, and because of that complicity – its continuation of licences for arms quite clearly being used to massacre innocent people across Gaza – if you look at that complicity, they needed something extra. They needed an even bigger stick to shut Palestine Action up so that the citizens of the UK were not permitted to recognise just how abhorrent this government’s behaviour is.
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