I have consistently gone to every single Ende Gelände action in
Germany. In fact I am the only person from the UK who has gone to every one of
the seven large mass direct actions against coal in the country. The last one
happened on Saturday the 30^th of November in the East of Germany in
the bitter cold and despite the threat of organised fascists attacking the
participants over 4,000 people took direct action blocking key points of the
coal industry’s infrastructure. Over a thousands got into three mines (Jaenschwalde-Ost, Welzow-Sued and
Vereinigtes Schleenhain) and many blocked three sets of train tracks that
transport coal from the mines to the power stations.

However unlike previous mass mobilisations organised by Ende Gelände it
was not an easy decision for me to go in the midst of one of the most important
general election campaigns in recent times. As a committed climate activist of
many years I have watched as the crucial green intervention has been made in
the Labour party under the auspices of Labour for a Green New Deal.
Far-reaching climate solutions that were once only contained to the fringes of
party politics  have now been firmly
placed at the core of the Labour Party’s manifesto pledges. Jobs in renewable
energy, home insulation projects, sustainable transport and tree-planting have
all been committed to under the new eco focus of the Labour Party. Unlike the Green
Party who remain on the fringes of electoral politics as a result of our
archaic first-past-the-post system, Labour have a very real chance of getting
into power. Government action so far on the climate crisis has at best been
woefully inadequate and at worst has been actively furthering the crisis like
with allowing new coal mines to be opened, pushing fracking, natural gas and
large-scale biomass to name but a few. Only a Corbyn led Labour party actively
responding to the demands of the ecological movement can provide us any hope of
implementing the necessary policies on the national level.

It is with this in mind I joined other Labour Party canvassers and
doorknockers going out in my constituency the Calder Valley recently. This constituency
is one of the key marginals in this election. The Tory MP Craig Whittiker won
by a very narrow margin of 609 votes against Labour in the election of 2017. The
Greens received 631 votes splitting the left vote in the Valley. Explicitly
citing the Green New Deal policies of the Labour party the local Green party
took the noble decision to stand down in this election in the hope that the
Green voters would vote for Labour instead and get the climate wrecking Tories
out. This was why a part of me found it perverse to travel across Europe to
join in with the climate justice movement there on this occasion when so much
is at stake in the UK.

However, as hopeful as I have become with the Labour for a Green New Deal
intervention and as supportive of the Labour party I am, I am still perpetually
faced with the reality that a Labour win is only just the start of what is
necessary to deal with the climate crisis in the UK and the world.

In a best-case scenario involving a Labour win Labour will be able to
set the ball rolling for their far-reaching policies to deal with the climate
crisis. But those who have benefited from the fossil capitalist system are
unlikely to go quietly. As part of the capitalist ruling class they will use
every weapon in their arsenal to discipline the forces against fossil fueled
capitalism. One country’s stance against the horrors of extreme climate change
will face the wrath of international fossil capital doing everything to
maintain its current power. It is for this reason that it is more important
than ever to have a strong focus on internationalism in fighting for climate
justice. Fossil capital is international, to defeat it our movement must be
too. Whether that’s shutting down coal infrastructure in Germany or acting in
solidarity with African-American, Latin American and Native American
communities in the Southern US that border forests destroyed for the biofuel
burned here in the UK; we must organise internationally in the way the climate
crisis demands.

It won’t be easy for a Labour-led government to confront the forces of
fossil capital. We must use grassroots direct action to severely damage the
industry in the here and now to make a move away from fossil fuels the easy
option. Direct action really does get the goods as the long struggle against
fracking in the UK has shown. Cynical election ploy it may be but the Tories
put the (temporary) ban on fracking in place because with so much of the population
against fracking they knew it could cost them a lot of votes in this election.
Local communities like Preston New Road have shown an absolutely dogged
determination to resist fracking using every possible method. These communities
along with national activist networks like Reclaim the Power have politicised
and controversialised the issue of fracking to the wider public unafraid to use
direct action to remove it’s social license to operate.

Whatever the outcome of this election we must continue to mount
pressure on the fossil fuel industry with direct action and resistance. And
with a Labour win we must not get complacent. They have got a suite of
incredibly necessary climate policies but there are many issues that get
overlooked. Labour is not critical of the developing biomass industry where
coal-fired power stations are being converted to burning huge amounts of wood
in a way that is considered ‘carbon neutral’ under EU law. Nor are they
anti-nulcear instead buying the industry argument that we need nuclear to
provide a base load of energy for the electricity grid rather than invest into electricity
storage and international energy grid cooperation. Nuclear cannot be the silver
bullet to our energy woes if we replace one ecological threat to current and
future generations with another. Nor are electric cars for all the answer
either. We need to reduce the incentive for individualised high energy
intensive transport.

With a Labour win the ecological movement must hold Labour to account on all it’s promises. At every turn we must build our grassroots social movements and continue to block fossil capitalist infrastructure on the national and international level. This is why I decided to travel to Germany in winter to shut down coal mining operations in the midst of one of the most important British elections of a generation.

Alice Swift