Climate Camp Arrests.

Several years ago the Climate Camp collective was set up to lobby the UK government on the issue of climate change through a series of headline grabbing publicity stunts. Being quite a young and naive organisation they did not take their internal security as seriously as perhaps they should have done. This allowed the police/MI5 to build up and extensive network of informants and agents within the organisation.

Ahead of the G20 Summit this network came together in an attempt to get Climate Camp to eschew the idea of a traditional summer camp in favour of setting up a camp outside the European Climate Exchange on Bishopsgate. This was only partially successful and resulted in about 95% of the spy ring having their cover blown.

This loss of control over and information on Climate Camp's activities caused the Security Services to panic. The police responded last night with a show of force raid in Nottinghamshire in which 100 people where arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit criminal damage and aggravated trespass. As with last weeks anti-terrorism raids the police don't have much evidence as there is some debate as to whether any offence was actually being planned.

What will happen now is the police will use this handbook as evidence to hold the arrested for the full 36 hours. They will then be released without charge and asked to surrender to police bail sometime in mid-May / early June when the criminal investigation will be dropped.

This is an old police trick of effectively using their powers as a form of internment to keep people out of circulation. It also has the added advantage of keeping the Climate Camp legal team very busy just as that legal team is collecting and collating evidence of police involvement in the Ian Tomlinson death.