A Guide to Direct Action

From guerilla gardening to oil refinery blocking, you've already probably witnessed, read about or engaged in direct action, but what's the law on taking political change into your own hands, and how can we peacefully and legally use it? We'll be joined by Robin from Fossil Free London, a group that takes disruptive action against Big Oil and to stop new UK fossil fuel projects. She will speak on the topic of direct action - what it is, the law around it and how to effectively use it to achieve campaign goals. Drawing on examples from direct actions across the world, we'll leave the session with a sense of some of the first steps we could take in our local area to use direct action to stand up for human rights.

During this session you will:

1. Gain an understanding of some of the direct action tactics which can be used
2. Understand when it is strategic to escalate to direct action
3. Gain knowledge of risk analysis, safeguarding and the practical things you need to consider before undertaking direct action

About Robin

Robin Wells is the founding Director of Fossil Free London, a protest organisation she started after having been part of the grassroots climate movement for many years; living in environmental occupations and organising direct action camps on climate and migrant causes.

A graduate in politics and philosophy, and previous support worker for refugee young people, she is now a spokesperson for climate action, delivering speeches, creating digital content and planning protests to challenge Big Oil. She’s especially interested in bringing new people into the movement, communicating how we respond to the climate crisis, and defending the right to protest.

This is a reminder that these events take staff time to organise and run and places are limited. We very much encourage you to sign up if you are interested but if you later discover you are not able to to attend please login and cancel your ticket as soon as possible so someone else can attend. Thank you.