Main image courtesy of Stop Polluting Politics
On Wednesday 04 September 100 protestors descended upon 55 Tufton Street.
The protest Unite against the Right was organised by the Stop Polluting Politics campaign in coalition with six climate, Palestine and migrant justice groups, including Tipping Point and No Borders in Climate Justice.
Accompanied by chants of ‘Labour, cut the ties!’ and carrying banners ‘Oily lobbyists out of politics!’, campaigners surrounded the entrances to the building.
Campaigners argue that resident pressure groups are responsible for fuelling climate denial, racism and transphobia by influencing political decisions on net zero, migration, trans rights and economic policy.
They demand the government to cut ties with the opaque lobby groups.
Nicknamed by the BBC as ‘the other black door shaping British politics’, Tufton Street hosts a number of rightwing lobby groups with undisclosed funding sources.
Donors with links to Tufton Street have handed hundreds of thousands of pounds to MPs across parties.
Earlier this year, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves faced controversy over ties to the climate-denying Global Warming Policy Foundation as she took £10,000 from its former chairman shortly before abandoning the £28 billion green investment pledge.
Notoriously secretive about its funders, GWPF has been revealed to receive funding from fossil fuel interests. Its board of trustees includes the Labour MP Graham Stringer.
Other resident organisations include the anti-immigration pressure group Migration Watch UK and the anti-trans LGB Alliance.
Since 2001, Migration Watch UK has campaigned against immigration, publishing misleading estimates and using inflammatory rhetoric such as ‘An ‘army’ of illegal immigrants is arriving in the UK every year’ or ‘Immigration Is A Threat To UK Security’.
‘Schmoozing with MPs and plowing money into political parties, rightwing pressure groups have come to exert a dangerous influence over our politics. For years they have been enjoying privileged access to policymakers, all the while keeping their funding under wraps. From delaying vital climate action to anti-immigration fearmongering and transphobia, they keep stoking division for their own gain.
‘The pressure groups of Tufton Street are accountable to no one, yet they exert a dangerous influence over political decisions that impact us all. We demand that this government puts a stop to the toxic lobbying and cut opaque pressure groups out of the conversation.’
SAM SIMONS
Spokesperson for Stop Polluting Politics
Following threats of arrest and heavy-handed restrictions imposed on the peaceful protest outside Tufton Street by the police, the protest Unite against the Right moved to the Policy Exchange headquarters.
Protestors restated their demand for the government to cut opaquely funded rightwing thinktanks and pressure groups out of discussions on policy.
In 2023, Rishi Sunak admitted the oil-funded thinktank Policy Exchange helped the government draft anti-protest laws targeting climate activists.
Similarly to the Tufton Street-based pressure groups, Policy refuses to disclose its funders; an investigation revealed the thinktank accepted $30,000 from the oil giant ExxonMobil.
Human rights groups including Amnesty International have labelled the anti-protest legislation as ‘draconian’.
Despite the links to big oil, the Labour Party has regularly hosted Policy Exchange at its annual conferences, allowing them to host nine events in 2021 and 2022 and 11 events in 2023.
The thinktank HQ was also targeted by Extinction Rebellion in July of this year.
‘With thinktanks like Policy Exchange enjoying privileged access to politicians, our protest laws might just as well be written by big oil itself. Policy Exchange take money from climate-wrecking oil giants who profit from the crisis at the expense of us all, and still they are welcomed at Labour conferences with open arms.
‘It is pressure groups like Policy Exchange and its chums on Tufton Street that should be the target of government scrutiny – not peaceful protestors. Labour must cut its ties with Policy Exchange and show they truly work for the people, not polluters.’
SAM SIMONS
Spokesperson for Stop Polluting Politics
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