Open letter to the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP asking for an urgent review of anti-protest legislation and the disproportionate sentencing of non-violent protestors.

Alice - February 4, 2025

Dear Shabana Mahmood MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

We would be very grateful if you could read the following email which presents our concerns regarding; current anti-protest legislation, the treatment and sentencing of climate protestors, the particular sensitivity of health workers and young people to the impacts of the climate crisis, and the evidence and reasoning to support the need for robust protest on the key issue of the climate and ecological emergency.

The Scale of the Climate and Ecological Crisis

The impact and risks of the climate and ecological crisis on health and societal cohesion are widely established and agreed internationally by scientists¹, healthcare practitioners², banking-industry economists³, and political leaders⁴.

The scale of the crisis has also been acknowledged by the UK political establishment, including in official government reports such as the UK treasury net zero interim progress report (2020)⁵, which stated; “Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Without global action to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the climate will change catastrophically with almost unimaginable consequences for societies across the world.”

The medical establishment has also been clear in its warnings, with a joint editorial published by 200 international journals in 2021⁶ identifying the crisis as “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century,” and the World Health Organisation stating that Climate change “…threatens the essential ingredients of good health – clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply and safe shelter”⁷. Alarmingly, credible peer- reviewed research indicates that between 1 and 3 billion people could be living in climates incompatible with life by 2050⁸.

The first Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting which brought together world leaders to cooperate and find solutions to the climate crisis took place in Berlin in 1995⁸. However it was 21 years later at COP 21 in 2016, that world leaders finally committed to significant coordinated action, by promising to limit global heating to well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial averages, setting a target boundary of close to 1.5 degrees above^9,10. Since then global average warming has reached 1.3 above pre-industrial levels and 2024 became the first calendar year in which the 1.5 degree boundary was consistently breached¹¹. Globally greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise exponentially with no sign of the plateau and subsequent rapid decrease that is essential to achieve the Paris goals.

Despite lip service to global leadership during COP26 in Glasgow in 2022, the UK government’s plans to achieve net zero have twice been found unlawful, with the high court describing those plans as “irrational”¹². Moreover, the last two years saw the then Conservative government pursue new oil extraction in the North Sea, expansion of airports and subsidies for domestic flights in a flagrant disregard for its carbon reduction commitments.¹³ The current government has reversed some of the most obviously damaging Conservative policies; yet it has already scaled back on its climate ambitions.¹⁴ Worryingly it is refusing to back, or even allow a free vote, on a Climate and Nature Bill¹⁵ which would embed genuinely ambitious climate action and leadership.

In summary, our political leaders in the UK, and globally are failing to show the leadership, imagination and courage required to pursue the difficult but necessary steps to address the climate and ecological crisis, including steps that will immediately improve population health by reducing air pollution. Meanwhile the impacts of this crisis are increasingly being felt, predominantly by the most vulnerable, globally, and in the UK¹⁶. The Los Angeles fires, in which climate change exacerbated floods followed by prolonged drought, played a significant role, have scorched an area the size of Paris, displaced more than 90,000 people, and killed at least 24 people.^17,18 The estimated costs are at least $250 billion. They should serve as a stark warning of what is to come.

Impact on Doctors and other Health Workers

The unfolding environmental crisis is causing significant emotional distress to younger people, who recognise that they are inheriting an unstable political and environmental legacy. International research shows a majority of young people are rightly fearful, report high levels of emotional distress, and are acutely aware of their governments failure to protect their futures.¹⁹

As individuals who have decided to pursue a profession engaged in the care of others, doctors and other health-workers are especially vulnerable to the emotional impacts of the unfolding crisis. Indeed, doctors’ professional code of conduct calls upon them to “make the care of the patient their first concern”²⁰. It is not surprising in this context that doctors and other health workers, especially those who have origins in, or who have worked amongst the communities most vulnerable to climate and ecological breakdown, are especially vulnerable to anxiety, grief and guilt at the impact of the crisis on their patients and communities. As the crisis grows it is inevitable that doctors and health workers will be increasingly affected, both as a consequence of increasing work-load and a likely reduction in their ability to provide acceptable care to patients, as a result of the direct, and indirect impacts of the crisis. These impacts are myriad and include, among many others; the direct and indirect effects of extreme weather events, the increasing numbers of vulnerable climate migrants, the increasing risk of pandemics and other infectious and communicable diseases, economic instability, and the emotional fall-out of all of the above on our populations. Moreover, health workers are increasingly aware of the negative environmental impacts of the health-care they provide, and the lack of priority given to sustainable transformation of the health service amidst other competing priorities causes additional distress, with many health workers finding it difficult to continue working in an environment so divorced from the realities of the unfolding crisis.

Given the vulnerability of young people and health workers to the emotional and psychological impacts of the crisis, it is unsurprising that many are seeking to take action to support mitigation and adaptation. This has resulted in an admirable groundswell of activism around the need for a sustainable public health approach to population health, the need for divestment from the fossil fuel industry and the industrial framework which supports it, and the lobbying of government actors to take more urgent action to protect health. In addition, many health workers have also felt compelled to engage in civil resistance as a route to achieving the political and cultural changes needed to address the crisis appropriately.

Restrictions on the Right to Protest in the UK

The best social science research indicates that civil disobedience in breach of the law is an effective component of achieving social and political change²⁰. In addition, our history abounds with lauded examples of the achievements of those who were willing to risk breaking the law to draw attention to injustice²¹. It is not therefore surprising that, given the continued failure of our political and civil systems to appropriately address the climate and ecological crisis, and the clear evidence that failure to do so will be catastrophic for health, that some health workers, as well as many other concerned, and compassionate members of society, have felt a sense of duty to participate in such actions.

While we acknowledge that protestors who are found to have contravened UK law will inevitably be held to account within the criminal justice system, the last few years have seen concerning restrictions on both the right to protest, and the right to a defence during the prosecution for protestors in the UK. The last three years has seen two criminal justice bills restricting the right to protest passed into law in the UK²². The second of these, the ‘Public Order Act’, was passed against the will of parliament using Tudor-era powers which the high court has ruled were used illegally²³. Rather than repealing this Conservative bill however, the now Labour government is instead using public money to pursue an appeal against this ruling. Over the same period, decisions by the Crown Prosecution Service to appeal several Jury acquittals of protestors, have resulted in the effective removal of legal defences for nonviolent protestors in UK courts²⁴, while the anti-protest rhetoric pursued by the right wing press and the recent Conservative and Labour government has also emboldened some judges to both restrict protestors from explaining their motivations in court, and to hand down unprecedented and controversially lengthy prison sentences for peaceful protest²⁵. These sentences are longer than those issued for violent disorder²⁶. These developments have resulted in international condemnation and have undermined the UK’s reputation for upholding the rule of law.^27,28

In summary, it appears that the UK government has decided to pursue the persecution of whistleblowers rather than undertake the appropriate action needed to protect public health.

Response by UK medical regulatory bodies

Under the current frameworks used by professional regulatory bodies, prosecution and especially custodial sentences will result in referral for fitness to practice proceedings. Given the weight placed by these tribunals on the sentences handed down by the judicial process, health practitioners are likely to face further penalty through suspension or annulment of their licence to practice. We believe that this situation represents an unjust and inappropriate double jeopardy in cases such as climate protest, where the impact on the doctor’s ability to provide patient care is not affected.

We would in this context, like to highlight the example of Dr Patrick Hart, a Bristol-based GP of exemplary professional standing, who was in January 2025 sentenced to 12 months immediate imprisonment for criminal damage to commercial property undertaken as part of a climate protest²⁹. Dr Hart has already been penalised with a fine following a civil court hearing for this same protest, as the property was subject to a private injunction. He was then denied any defence in law and found guilty a second time and sentenced to 12 months in prison. He now further faces a fitness to practice tribunal this year and in effect will be punished three times for his protest. It is clear that Dr Hart has become a victim of a system that increasingly criminalises and disproportionately penalises protestors, and that are discriminatory toward health workers as a result of the additional professional penalties they may face if they take action. This is likely to have a suppressive effect on health workers’ confidence to take part in protest, which is recognised as an essential component of a functioning democratic society, and an assault on their rights to protect under human rights law .

Conclusion

Finally, we would like you to consider the courage and moral fortitude displayed by Dr Hart, and others like him, and recognise that not only are they motivated by a desire to protect the health and wellbeing of our societies, but that their actions are evidence-based and follow in the footsteps of a proud UK history of civil disobedience.

Please consider the above carefully and call for an urgent review of recent anti-protest legislation and the sentences handed down to the UK’s prisoners of conscience.

Thank you for your attention,

Health for Extinction Rebellion.

Press contacts:

Ali Rowe – 07901 916 489

Dr Alice Clack – 07919 882 601

References: