UK border police used anti-terrorist legislation to prevent a British climate change activist from crossing over into mainland Europe where he planned to take part in events surrounding the forthcoming United Nations summit in Denmark.

Chris Kitchen, a 31-year-old office worker, said he feared his treatment by police could mark the start of a clampdown on protesters, hundreds of whom are planning to travel to Copenhagen for the climate change talks in December.

Tonight he will make a second attempt to reach Denmark, where he plans to take part in discussions organised by a network of protest groups coming together under the banner Climate Justice Action.

He said he was prevented from crossing the border yesterday at about 5pm, when the coach he was travelling on stopped at the Folkestone terminal of the Channel tunnel.

Kitchen said police officers boarded the coach and, after checking all passengers’ passports, took him and another climate activist to be interviewed under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a clause which enables border officials to stop and search individuals to determine if they are connected to terrorism.

The passports were not initially scanned, Kitchen said, suggesting the officials knew his name and had planned to remove him from the coach before they boarded. During his interview, he was asked questions about his family, work and past political activity. The police also asked him what he intended to do in Copenhagen.

When Kitchen said that anti-terrorist legislation does not apply to environmental activists, he said the officer replied that terrorism “could mean a lot of things”. By the time his 30-minute interview had concluded, Kitchen’s coach had gone.

This should surprise noone. The reason why the police’s behaviour was different to normal throughout the summer was because the interests of the state weren’t seen as being threatened. Granted there is clearly a widely held attitude amongst the police that climate activism is tantamount to terrorism – there’s little other explanation for their unprovoked and unwarranted violence against Climate Camp at Bishopsgate earlier in the year. But a camp in Blackheath, with the occasional forays into Canary Wharf and the City for PR stunts is hardly the same as a mass demonstration to coincide with the G20 leaders’ visit to London, or a ‘swoop’ on a power station like Ratcliffe-on-Soar. So nothing happened in the summer, whilst harsh scenes are likely in three days’ time, and ever more the closer we get to December. The violence in April was unwarranted and unacceptable – it’s equally unacceptable that the police should choose to use anti-terrorism legislation against environmentalists. Just don’t expect any major party to be able or want to unpick this mess any time soon.

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