Yesterday afternoon the City of London Corporation served notice on Occupy London’s encampment at the London Stock Exchange. This is a precursor to legal proceedings. The City claims to want to fight and talk simultaneously but doesn’t listen, an essential condition for talking with another. Say what you like about the Occupy London general assemblies but we discussed the City’s “offer”, dressed up in its over reaching drafting, in huge detail in our many hundreds. By what right do we do this, the 1% ask us? By the right of being alive, we reply and we fiercely argued every last bloody detail of the City’s offer, over four days, in what can be only described as the most rigorous political debate seen in the UK this century, before rejecting it.
We issued a counter offer: that we will do a deal with the City, if they comply with three laws which are already applicable throughout the rest of the land. They refuse to even acknowledge the existence of the demands, begging the question what have they got to hide? Freedom of information, cash account disclosure and publicising campaigns/lobbying. Everywhere else these are completely open but in the City secret.
The City is anti-democratic. They want to fight, not talk. Occupy London has been prepared for one month now, largely thanks to the Corporation’s practical incompetence (Born out of centuries of easy control – when was the last time the City of London had to deal with persistently troublesome civil disobedience?). We are ready to go. Bring it on. Game on. We have only just begun, the biggest Occupation in the world. Expect us.