The police may have cleared the road to the drilling site in Balcombe but the road to fracking in this country is far from open

 
Video by Reel News

When I arrived at the Reclaim the Power’ event in Balcombe, West Sussex I found one of the the best organised camps I have ever been to. There were already marquees and a media centre set up, everyone including myself lent a hand to establish the remaining facilities of disabled access, kitchens and entertainment the kind you would expect at a festival.

But this camp had been set up for protest, not profit. And I was there to join the protest against fracking exploration happening in this quiet corner of the home counties.

Never did the people of Balcombe think that their village would be in the headlines, or that there would be such an invasion of police and protesters.

The camp itself unlike a festival was self-organised with everybody mucking in and taking part in decision making. There were no heavies in bomber jackets checking tickets, mutual cooperation was the order of the day. The heavies would come on Monday, but they were wearing fluorescent yellow.

There were people from all over the country and all over the world. The campaign against fracking having caught people’s imagination. It brings together the local and the global, the protection of the English countryside from having extractive industries built on them, and protecting the world from global warming. The English shires and the poorest people of the world, condemned to live in low lying flood-prone areas united by a common interest. Even on the train down there I got into conversations with strangers about fracking, and they were overwhelmingly opposed.

On direct action day I was placed in a group with others and we were assigned a task. We discussed among ourselves how we were to carry this out.

Among us in my group was a man in his 50s and a young man in his early twenties. The latter had never been on a protest before. Others were more experienced. Another was a local grandmother. She said that she couldn’t believe what was happening with the fracking in her small local community. Nor could she believe the size of the police presence and their behaviour. The media has been pushing a line that the local communities may not like the fracking but were opposed to the protests, and especially any use of direct action. She gave the lie to this, she was not only in favour of the direct action, she was going to take part in it.

On the day of the direct action we had go cross country across fields and over styles to get to the main entrance of the drilling site, and target of the direct action. Many people had already been kettled there and were singing to keep up their spirits. People had linked arms and were sitting down in the road. The police started barging into the crowd in groups creating lines through the kettle, cutting it up into ever smaller groups.

The police starting handing out pieces of paper with warnings on which were generally tossed aside. Then they started giving out verbal warnings, but this was drowned out by singing. They said that they would be removing people and that they would be using pressure point techniques – and then set about their task.

One of the first was the son of Caroline Lucas MEP. They grabbed him and started applying pressure to sensitive points of his head and body. As he cried out in pain his mother reached over to comfort him but was brusquely restrained by a large police officer as he was dragged away. The air was full of shouts and screams, people crying out and pain and others crying. A respite was negotiated and it was agreed that all those that wanted to leave and avoid being so roughly manhandled by the police could do so.

Some left the kettle to join others outside singing and shouting encouragement. Then the police resumed their dragging off and this time making arrests. The remaining protesters, including Caroline Lucas were dragged off to waiting police vans.

The police may have cleared the road to the drilling site in Balcombe but it is now clear that the road to fracking in this country is far from open. If the Tories and the oil giants push ahead with their plans then Balcombe will just be the first skirmish in a much longer struggle.