Suspend UK from oil oversight body over protests crackdown, say campaign groups

A coalition of civil society groups is calling for the UK government to be suspended from a key global body that oversees how oil and gas companies are run.

The campaigners said Keir Starmer’s Labour party had overseen a “fossil fuel-sponsored crackdown” on peaceful protest and direct action in the UK since it came to power last year.

They argued that these measures – which have led to a record number of peaceful climate activists beng jailed – were incompatible with the UK’s continued membership of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an organisation that brings together governments, companies and civil society to improve the governance of big oil.

Jolyon Maugham, the executive director of the Good Law Project, was one of those who signed Friday’s submission to the EITI.

“Until our government remembers it isn’t a private security firm for the oil and gas industry, recognises the important right to protest, and stops jailing peaceful climate activists, the UK should be suspended from the initiative,” he said.

The government has faced severe criticism for its crackdown on the right to protest. Michel Forst, the UN rapporteur on environmental defenders, has described the situation in the UK as “terrifying”. This week the government moved to proscribe Palestinian Action under the Terrorism Act, putting the direct action group into the same legal category as al-Qaida and Islamic State.

The EITI, which is based in Oslo, has more than 50 member countries, including the UK. It aims to give equal voice to big oil, governments and civil society groups in overseeing how extractive industries are run, from how contracts are awarded, to political donations and taxes.

Part of its standard, to which all signatories must adhere, states: “The government is required to ensure that there is an enabling environment for civil society participation with regard to relevant laws, regulations and administrative rules as well as actual practice in implementation of the EITI.”

The campaigners said successive UK governments had breached this requirement, pointing to harsh anti-protest measures that have been introduced, and highlighting the influence of individuals, including the government’s independent adviser on political violence, and rightwing thinktanks with links to the fossil fuel industry.

Tim Crosland, the director of the climate justice charity Plan B, which also signed the submission, along with the Corner House and Defend Our Juries, said: “The UK government has sold off democracy to its sponsors in the fossil fuel industry. It allows them to draft the laws to silence and jail their own civil society critics. If that conforms to the EITI standard for promoting civil society engagement in extractive industry governance, the standard isn’t set very high.”

Member countries must be validated against the EITI standard at least every three years and the UK’s validation period is due to begin on 1 July. A decision on its continued membership is expected later in the summer.