Occupy London camp at Tate dispersed as St Paul’s camp is reprieved
The eleven protesters who set up tents on the green in front of Tate Modern at Bankside yesterday were moved on by Southwark council and the police yesterday afternoon. The green-space has since been fenced off to prevent further encroachment by protesters. This all took place as the St Paul’s protest camp received a stay of execution last night and the Most Reverend Dr Rowen Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, stepped in to support the protest which has been set up in front of St Paul’s cathedral.
The City of London Corporation has now “paused” its legal action against the camp which highlights corporate greed. Their policy chairman Stuart Fraser stated, the decision followed the cathedral’s move to suspend its own legal action against the camp.The Archbishop’s intervention came after the Church and the City of London Corporation agreed to suspend plans to evict protesters who have been camped at the St Paul’s site for more than two weeks. The issue has caused deep divisions in the Church and has led to the resignation of three key members of St Paul’s clergy.
Dr Rowan Williams said that the Church of England had a “proper interest in the ethics of the financial world” and warned that there had been “little visible change in banking practices” following the recession. He urged David Cameron and George Osborne to drop their opposition to a European-wide tax on financial transactions, which is expected to be formally proposed by France and Germany at the G20 summit of world leaders starting tomorrow.
The Tate organisation, who sponsors the Turner Prize declined to comment on the situation, which occurred outside of the Thames gallery. It remained open, with business as usual, as tourists flocked to the Gerhard Richter exhibition yesterday. Mark Wallinger whose work recreated peace campaigner Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest with a dramatic installation at Tate Britain, coincidentally won the Turner Prize in 2007, another example of life immitating art.