UK democracy has been sold off to the highest bidder, with oil & arms companies corrupting the rule of law in order to maintain their powerful grip on our society.

Throughout this timeline of corruption, you will discover how corporations use their immense wealth to influence elected officials, propose anti-democratic law, manipulate UK legal cases, and silence those who oppose them along the way.

This corrupting of UK law makes a mockery of the judiciary, and exposes the public to rapidly-increasing authoritarian rule.

Oil companies have known for decades that their products would have ‘globally catastrophic’ effects, but they have used their power and influence to confuse the public and silence effective opposition.

According to recently unearthed documents, major oil companies including Shell and precursors to energy giants Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP, were alerted about the planet-warming effects of fossil fuels as early as 1954.

After the head of the Air Pollution Foundation, a group set up by the oil companies themselves, revealed the impacts that a warming Earth would have, those same oil companies set out to cover up the research and to misinform the public.

Sources: Climate Investigations Center

In April 2019, direct action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) launches a 10-day blockade of central London. Their intention is to highlight the devastating impacts of burning fossil fuels.

During this campaign, the thousands-strong group delivers three demands to the UK Government:

• Tell the truth

”The government must tell the truth about the scale of the ecological crisis by declaring a climate emergency, working with other groups and institutions to communicate the urgent need for change.”

• Net zero emissions by 2025

”The UK must drastically cut its greenhouse gas emissions, hitting net zero by 2025.”

• Citizens’ assembly

”The government must create a citizens’ assembly to hear evidence and devise policy to tackle the climate crisis.”

Citizens’ assemblies bring together ordinary people to investigate, discuss and make recommendations on how to respond, in this case, to the ecological emergency. (find out more about citizens’ assemblies here)

Unable to manage the disruption and the vast number of arrests, the government meets with XR to discuss terms, claiming to share the group’s ambitions.

Sources: XRUK – YouTube

Following talks, XRUK’s demand for a climate emergency declaration is met by UK Parliament.

The fossil fuel industry is rattled by the power of collective public action.

Sources: BBC News

The UK government commits to Net Zero targets, threatening the profits of oil companies with a gradual reduction in carbon emissions.

The UK becomes the first major economy to bring Net Zero emissions targets into law, setting a 2050 deadline for all greenhouse gas emissions.

Sources: gov.uk

Policy Exchange, a far-right think tank backed by wealthy oligarchs, label Extinction Rebellion ‘a threat to democracy’ in a 2019 report.

Policy Exchange is reportedly funded by some of the world’s largest oil companies, although they do not declare their funding publicly. The think tank also has close ties to the Labour Party, having hosted events at the last two Labour conferences.

These conference panel discussions are sponsored by arms manufacturers, outsourcers and finance companies. In late 2022, Policy Exchange released a report calling for widespread reform of the NHS with a speech from the then shadow health secretary Wes Streeting at the Policy Exchange HQ.

Streeting is now a Labour government front-bencher, open supporter of the Israeli government, and holds office as Secretary of State for Health & Social Care.

Sources: Open Democracy, Declassified UK

Palestine Action, a group who use direct action tactics to draw attention to UK complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestine, launch their campaign.

”Palestine Action is a grassroots, horizontally-led, direct-action network, focused on getting concrete results. We will take action against complicit companies, and we will pressure institutions to divest from them.”

Sources: Palestine Action

After changing his name from John Woodcock to Lord Walney upon receipt of a life peerage, Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson also appoints the former Labour MP to the position of “independent adviser on political violence and disruption”.

Woodcock/Walney, who left the Labour Party amid accusations of sexual misconduct in 2018, leveraged his new position to gain paid roles as a lobbyist for oil & arms companies.

Sources: Byline Times

Right-wing billionaire and major shareholder in UK news publishers, Rupert Murdoch, sits on the board of Genie Energy Corporation, an oil and gas firm which he also owns a stake in.

Genie explores for oil in the Golan Heights, a territory illegally occupied by Israel, and has been quoted as having said “we should approach climate change with great skepticism”.

Sources: Desmog

Palestine Action uses direct action tactics to hit the profits of Elbit Systems, the UK’s largest Israeli weapons manufacturer.

Elbit Systems UK markets its weapons as “battle tested”, suggesting that their use in Israel’s international war crimes is a positive sales point.

After 18 months of direct action against Elbit Systems UK, the arms company begins selling property and closing factories.

“Our actions have undermined and disrupted operations – but this news vindicates our long-term strategy,” says Palestine Action.

Sources: Middle-East Eye

The Home Secretary, Priti Patel meets with Elbit Systems UK to offer her reassurance over Palestine Action’s campaign against them. A meeting note suggests that the Home Office is in contact with the police over the matter, despite stating that the police are to remain “operationally independent” of the government.

This would not be the first time Priti Patel had inappropriate pro-Israel meetings, having lost her cabinet position in 2017 after secretly meeting with Israeli lobbyists and minsters on no less than 14 occasions.

Sources: Home Office, Guardian

The UK Government attempts to introduce new laws to see peaceful protesters given up to 10 years in prison. The proposed sentences would mean protesters could receive harsher sentences than many receive for violent or sexual offences.

The new laws would also include an offence of “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” – a law formerly reserved for incidents such as companies negatively impacting the local public by causing air pollution.

The proposed laws would mean that a single individual holding a placard and sharing their views via a loudspeaker could be fined up to £2,500 if they refused to follow police directions about how they should conduct their protest.

Sources: Parliament.uk, BBC

Rishi Sunak thanks Policy Exchange for their help in writing anti-protest laws.

The Prime Minister publicly admits that these laws, which are intent on silencing impactful opposition to the oil and arms industries, had been drafted by a far-right think tank with known links to oil & arms companies.

Policy Exchange keeps their funding a secret, but some journalists have uncovered direct links and financial exchanges between the think tank and companies with vested interests in the implementation of anti-protest measures.

Sources: Open Democracy

A journalist from The Sun, one of oil-investor Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, attends an open call organised by direct action climate group, Just Stop Oil. During the call, supporters openly discuss plans to cause traffic disruption on the M25 in order to pressure the UK government to end new North Sea oil & gas licenses.

The journalist records the call and forwards the video to the police, leading to the arrests of a number of Just Stop Oil supporters, including founder Roger Hallam, on suspicion of “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance”.

Thanks in part to the Policy Exchange and Lord Walney’s efforts, the maximum sentence for this crime is now 10 years in prison.

Sources: The Sun, Just Stop Oil

In November 2022, five Palestine Action activists who threw paint on the London HQ of Elbit Systems are found not-guilty by a jury.

The activists are unanimously acquitted after the jury deliberates for less than an hour. When juries receive all of the necessary details in a case, they can make moral and fair choices based on their conscience. During the trial, the defendants argue that the owners of the building would have consented to any minimal damage had they known of the circumstances of the protest.

During the 7-day trial, the Palestine Actionists share their experiences with the jury, explaining that forcing Elbit Systems out of Britain is an imperative and moral duty. Others share their experiences in Palestine, having witnessed firsthand how Elbit’s weaponry is being used to oppress and dehumanise the indigenous population.

The whole truth matters.

Sources: Palestine Action, Garden Court Chambers

In 2022, Israeli Embassy officials attempt to influence Palestine Action trials via the UK Attorney General’s office.

Palestine Action themselves manage to obtain documents using a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, only to receive heavily redacted email correspondence which suggests a direct line of communication between Attorney General Douglas Wilson and the Israeli embassy.

An email sent by Wilson to embassy representatives after a meeting states: “As we noted … the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] makes its prosecution decisions and manages its casework independently. The law officers are unable to intervene on an individual case or comment on issues related to active proceedings.”

Sources: The Guardian

The UK government brings new Public Order offences into force in an attempt to shut down disruptive protests. Meanwhile, the Attorney General seeks clarification from the Supreme Court on the removal of defences which protesters have relied upon.

These measures significantly increase the police’s powers to respond to protest and could see individuals banned from protest altogether.

The Public Order Act aims to increase the police’s ability to restrict and criminalise protest activity by introducing a range of new powers which allow, among other things, for:

• new and expanded use of stop and search;
• orders that ban people from participating in protests and control their movement/activity/associations;
• new offences that criminalise certain kinds of protests altogether.

The Government has explicitly referred to Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and Insulate Britain protests as justification for its introduction.

Sources: Liberty, gov.uk

Ofer Meishar, Chief Security Officer of Elbit Systems, is due to give evidence at a UK trial of Palestine Actionists. However, following a letter from the Israeli government saying that he is playing ‘a crucial role’ in the ongoing military operation, Meishar is not allowed to leave Israel to give evidence at the trial.

Instead, Elbit sends a security officer who has only recently started working for the company. Paul Imm, Elbit UK’s new chief security officer, suggests that he has no idea what was made in Elbit’s factories but still attempts to distance the work from their Israeli branch. He also claims never to have looked at the company’s website.

Barrister for the defence, Audrey Mogan, quipps in her closing speech that “even Elbit doesn’t want to be associated with Elbit”.

The defendants are found not-guilty.

Sources: Declassified,

‘Lord’ Walney, funded by oil and arms lobbyists, publishes a report to advise the UK Government that some protest groups should be considered organised criminals or terrorist groups.

The report sparks condemnation, with some claiming it to be a “threat to democracy”, while others call the so-called “independence” of Lord Walney into question, given that his report focuses on Climate & Palestine protests and he is paid by firms with vested interests in the Israeli arms industry and Big Oil.

Tim Crosland of Plan B/Defend Our Juries remarks that the report’s recommendations are “not surprising, since they serve the vested corporate interests he represents. But it would be a shocking deception on the public for anyone to present those recommendations as ‘independent’.”

Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine, Action points out that “Unelected politicians with vested interests in arms companies and genocidal entities should not be given airtime to dictate British policy.”

Walney also proposes an investigation into jury trials in which climate and anti-racist protesters have been found not-guilty – a clear attack on the independence and rights of juries.

Sources: Tribune, Plan B

In the months following Lord Walney’s report, Britain’s already-overflowing jails begin to fill up with people opposing genocide and fossil fuels.

With judges misleading juries on their right to acquit (jury equity), the removal of legal defences (defendants are even given no defence in law and are threatened with arrest if they talk about their motivations), and the corruption of UK lawmaking by the likes of Policy Exchange and Lord Walney, juries are handed a “route to verdict” without knowing that they can make a decision based on their own conscience.

This coordinated attack on jury trials renders a defendant’s oath to “tell the whole truth” pointless. Some defendants such as “The Whole Truth Five” refuse to be silenced, explaining their motives in defiance of the judge’s orders. They are repeatedly arrested in court for telling the jury why they became involved in nonviolent direct action.

The Whole Truth Five are found guilty after a very eventful trial.

Sources: Just Stop Oil

Michel Forst, United Nations Special Rapporteur for environmental defenders, calls the extreme sentences of the Whole Truth Five “not acceptable in a democracy”.

Having attended the trial at Southwark Crown Court due to concerns over the treatment of peaceful protesters in the UK, Mr Forst makes clear his condemnation of both the way the trial was carried out and the resulting sentences.

The government says it will not intervene in the case, with Keir Starmer’s spokesman saying that judgments and sentencing are matters for independent judges, “and it is not for politicians to intervene”.

A reminder that Kier Starmer’s government at this time has kept Lord Walney in his position as ‘independent advisor’, despite his corrupted influences being publicly exposed.

Sources: The Guardian

Members of direct action group Palestine Action are treated like terrorists after taking action at an Israeli weapons factory in Bristol, UK.

18 individuals are arrested in total following the protest at Elbit Systems’ Filton factory, during which they are accused of causing as much as £1million in damages.

Those arrested on-site are kept in solitary conditions with no contact to friends or family for a week under the Terrorism Act, before being remanded to custody without any terror-related charges. Some of the 18 are arrested at their homes during dawn raids and are also remanded into custody.

The 18 remain in prison for months without trial, awaiting a trial date which is unlikely to take place until over a year after their initial arrests.

It is apparent that Lord Walney’s corrupted report is influencing the police and court response to direct action.

Sources: Novara, Palestine Action

Reports emerge that fossil fuel investor Paul Marshall, also the boss of right-wing news-entertainment channel “GB News”, donated £890,000 to Policy Exchange via a charitable trust under his control between 2020 and 2023.

Paul Marshall has almost $2Billion shares in over 110 fossil fuel companies, including Shell, Chevron, and Equinor.

Sources: Byline Times

Defend Our Juries joins with a range or UK organisations in forming the Free Political Prisoners campaign.

On January 29th & 30th 2025, over 1,000 people occupy the road outside the Royal Courts of Justice as 16 UK Political Prisoners face a mass-appeal against their extreme sentences for nonviolent direct action.

Calling for an end to the corruption of UK law by corporate interests, the sacking of Lord Walney, and for UK political prisoners to be freed, those occupying the road defy police intimidation and remain in place for the duration of the action.

This incredible show of solidarity is widely reported, mounting pressure on the UK government to step in and end corruption in lawmaking.

Sources: Defend Our Juries

Lord Walney is sacked from his influential position as ‘independent adviser on political violence’.

Having never been ‘independent’ in the first place due to Walney being on the payroll for oil & arms lobbying firms, the UK government finally gives in to public pressure and drops both Walney and the role itself.

The Home Office says Lord Walney’s work would “continue to inform our approach”, leaving their attitude towards corrupt influences unclear.

Sources: BBC

On March 7th 2025, the appeal ruling for the extreme sentences of Just Stop Oil’s political prisoners – the ‘Lord’ Walney 16 – is given at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Lady Justice Carr, who had upheld the previous record prison sentences of Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland at their own hearing, gives token reduction to just six of the 16 sentences.

Upon giving her ruling, over 30 supporters of the Free Political Prisoners campaign stand up, turn their backs to Carr, and remove outer clothing to reveal “Corruption in Court” t-shirts.

The cumulative total to be served by the 16 is reduced from 41 years to 35 years. This is for taking entirely nonviolent action to demand the Government stop issuing new oil and gas licenses, a demand which was met after the 2024 general election.

Sources: Defend Our Juries