The Compassionate Revolution was launched in Stroud at the end of June this summer to be a space where we can align our actions to see change in the world and assert our collective power.
How?
We hosts pledges of “art, heart and civil disobedience”. Pledges mean “I’ll do it if you will do it” – so safety in numbers; as well as a way to log people acting as collectives where safety is less important but a sense of others operating together boosts our morale. We’ve had some good legal advice and are willing to take risks.

At the moment pledges include:

Heart pledges:

-a prayer / practice calling for the Ecocide Law / developing inner resolve

–sharing your home with a refugee, supported by RedPepper magazine

Art pledge:

–disrupt the propaganda of the media billionaires (its not illegal to move newspapers in news agents or put stickers on free news papers)

Civil disobedience:

A pledge that you are willing to risk arrest to protect life on earth (we will share actions related to this with this network)

We are working on other civil disobedience pledges- case of watch this space..OR dream up your own and contact us through the site to suggest other ideas.

We have big dreams for this approach, so please help us spread the idea and pledges. A simple useful thing is to call yourself and your work that of a Compassionate Revolutionary.  We don’t all need to agree on every finer detail..just the kinds of things outlined here.

Runnymede Eco-Village in Epic Court Battle – Sept 2015
Runnymede Eco-Village – a stone’s throw from the place where the Magna Carta was signed in 1215 – may be creating in its legal defence against eviction in the High Court a historic legal precedent which, in invoking within the legal challenge to fight eviction the “Charter of the Forest”, an accompanying document to the Magna Carta 800 years ago, could establish legal precedent to the recognition of a new-use class of sustainable land management within planning law and establish “rights of use” even if the existing land title would be confirmed. The ‘land use right’ could be legally upheld in this court-case between the developer and the squatters, who include amongst their number women and children and young families.

Established in 2012, Runnymede ecovillage has held its ground, stopping the development of the site. In Runnymede Digger’s own words: “Runnymede Eco-Village was founded in 2012 by a group of land activists known as the Diggers. They modelled themselves after Gerald Winstanley and the 1649 Diggers who had attempted to settle open, free, self-sustaining communities on the common lands of Britain during the English Civil War […]After squatting and being moved on from several pieces of land (more detail below), the group came upon and settled the disused former Brunel University campus, creating Runnymede Eco-Village. […] Despite eviction threats and an on going legal process to remove the community from the land, the village has remained and will soon mark its third year anniversary on the 11th of June, 2015.”

Now, having celebrated its Third Year with a summer festival, Runnymede is in court, making a constitutional case for why they should remain in occupation. Like all possession cases, the law is rigged in favour of the title holders (in this case an offshore developer), acting in the interests of that sacred cow, private property. However, the legal team for Runnymede are putting together a bold case, that references a whole gamut of law (common, European and Constitutional), that goes to the heart of ancient land rights during this period of modern enclosure. On their website, you can find the following regarding their case:
Press Release – “Historic Appeal Case Could Set Precedent for Right to Low-Impact Living”
Skeleton Legal Argument (6 pages) – Scribd
Fuller Legal Argument with Case Law and Precedents

WEBSITE: https://diggers2012.wordpress.com

FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/Diggers2012

TWITTER: @freetheland

This write-up adapted from article courtesy of SQUASH campaign – opposing anti-squatting legislation. Ref: http://www.squashcampaign.org

More on the Diggers of Runnymede:
The weekend after the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, on June 9th 2012, a group of people met at Syon Lane allotments and walked along the Grand Union Canal out of London to Windsor, travelling overnight on route to Windsor Great Park having already identified disused land on crown estate land. [See original report here: http://london.indymedia.org/articles/12379 ]. The intention was to grow food, live sustainably and restore and build structures in a responsible way, rather like a re-intepretation of the origin of the word Jubilee – returning land to it’s orginal inhabitants. Pre-emptive injunctions were served on them before they had even set off. They had planned to set up an ecovillage camp on what had been identified as a disused farm (confirmed by a local in a days prior to the occupation), but when they settled on the site, the crown estate legal team produced a “farmer” who said it was a hay meadow which was soon to be cropped for sileage (a comment made was that there will be a lot of nettles in that sileage for sure)!

After a game of cat and mouse with Thames Valley Police who followed the intrepid diggers where-ever they walked (they attempted to settle on another site close by, but police were already waiting for them there and stopped them), the group spent the night on a site near Runnymede.

By Monday 11th, the group found a spot of woodland within Coopers Hill Woods adjacent to National Trust land at Runnymede where they settled down. The site is owned by Royal Holloway University. The woodland site is earmarked for housing owned by a property company Orchid who have plans to build a large housing development on the site. The occupation of the site has ensured the development plans for the site have been delayed – continued action which has overwhelming support from local people opposed to the proposed development which would be highly controversial being as the site is green-belt land.

But as well as effectively ‘digging in’ to resist this proposed development to protect an area of semi-natural woodland from monstrous development in green-belt land by continuing to contest eviction proceedings by the developer/site owner which are now being challenged in the High-Court, these modern-day diggers are also asserting a right-to-livelihood, with mothers and their small children amongst the permanent residents there.
In the Magna Carta Lecture which took place in 2012 at Royal
Holloway University, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, defined law as ”as all those protocols that stop society being run exclusively in the interests of whatever group happens to be dominant at any moment, and that thus guarantee fairness and redress independently of status or power.” In the Runnymede Diggers own words (written in 2012): “Here in Runnymede, where the notion of modern law, justice and equality are said to have sprung from, you could be forgiven for thinking that the law may reflect Rowan William’s definition. And yet the reverse appears to be true. Instead we find a minority of land owning elites hold almost total power of over access to the thing whose life we all depend on: the land. Those of us here at Runnymede Eco-Village have become quite used to breaking the laws as a by-product of simply trying to live on disused land in a low impact and harmless way. We will carry on doing what we think is just as the primary guide over and above these laws.”

International Reclaim the Fields Action Camp

When: Friday 6pm 28th August – Wednesday 2nd September 2015

Where: Dudleston Community Protection Camp, Shropshire on the Wales/England Border.

http://www.reclaimthefields.org.uk/reclaim-the-fields-international-action-camp-2015/workshops-programme/
About: Reclaim the Fields UK (RTF) was born in 2011, as a star in a wider constellation of food and land struggles that reaches around the globe. Since 2011, camps and other RTF gatherings have helped support local communities in struggle, share skills, developed networks, and strengthened the resistance to exploitation, in Bristol, west London, Gloucestershire, Nottingham and Fife among other locations.
Every two years there is also an international camp, where people from around Europe and beyond meet together to support a local struggle (from gold mining in Romania to open cast coal mining in Germany, for example). People share share stories and ideas about resistance and reclaiming our food system beyond national borders. This year, an international gathering will be held in the UK, in Dudleston, Shropshire, on the Welsh/English border.

The aims of the camp are:

To support local communities in the west and north west of England, and the north of Wales with their struggles against fracking
To increase participation in Reclaim the Fields
To demonstrate visible, active opposition to prison construction
To support Dudleston Community Protection Camp build a garden and infrastructure to become more self-reliant
To demonstrate the interconnection between these struggles
To inspire and radicalise everyone involved

What is happening:

Two days of Action – Tuesday 1st & Wednesday 2nd September – demonstrations & actions against companies involved in the construction of the North Wales prison, as well as local fracking-related targets.
Workshops & Skillshares – Over the bank holiday weekend there will be abundant opportunities to learn, share, discuss and connect with other people.
Building & Growing on the site – Be part of installing gardens & low impact infrastructure at the community protection camp. Learn about permaculture, agroecology, forest gardening, mushroom growing, pallet construction, compost toilet making, off-grid electrics and more.

Why:

This camp has been organised to support the local community in Dudleston to resist fracking in their area (as well as working with other local anti-fracking groups & protection camps in the North West who have been resisting extreme energy developments for a number of years). To find out more about their struggle visit: http://frack-off.org.uk/blockade/dudleston-community-protection-camp/
It has also been organised to give attention to the North Wales Prison Project that is being constructed. This will be Europe’s second largest prison holding 2100 prisoners and the first of a number of ‘mega prisons’ that the UK Government wish to build. Click here for more information about the prison, why we are against it & links to articles about the prison industrial complex in the UK

How to get involved:

Click on the links below to find more practical information about the camp and how to get involved:

Workshops & programme – what’s happening & how to contribute
Planning Actions
Directions & public transport information
What to bring
Safer Spaces Agreement
Accessibility of the site
Food & donations

This is a DIY camp and everyone is needed to get stuck in to make it happen. People are needed to:

Support with publicity before the event – sharing the gathering online, putting posters up, encouraging your local group to get involved. People are also needed to help design the programme, respond to emails & plan facilitation.
Helping with site set up & building infrastructure (planning this in advance & being on site a few days before the gathering)
Signing up to a shift over the weekend to help with cooking, site set up & safety, being on the welcome tent & so forth
Supporting local groups to organise actions
If you can help with any of these tasks please email info@reclaimthefields.noflag.org.uk

Spread the word:

Poster design here: http://reclaimthefields.noflag.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/724x1024xRTF-Camp-2015-Small-724×1024.jpg.pagespeed.ic.nstm8bYFPI.jpg
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/560637597407933/

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_______________________________________________
Uk mailing list
Uk@lists.reclaimthefields.org
http://lists.reclaimthefields.org/mailman/listinfo/uk

SNP-led Scottish Government unveils radical plans to tackle land ownership inequality
The Independent
24 June 2015
Ref:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/snpled-scottish-government-unveils-radical-plans-to-tackle-inequality-in-land-ownership-10340098.html

The question of who holds the rightful claim to Scotland’s majestic glens, lochs and mountains is almost as old as the country itself, with the debate over land ownership north of the border resulting in much bloodshed over the centuries.

It is a thorny subject for the SNP-led Scottish Government to tackle. But ministers have finally published radical plans aimed at widening the ownership of land across the country, which could result in currently private estates being taken away from landowners and handed to local communities.

Ministers at Holyrood say the proposals contained in the Land Reform Bill will go some way to addressing the inequality of land ownership in Scotland. According to some estimates half of the country’s private land is controlled by just 432 different owners, while the three biggest private landowners hold almost half a million acres between them.

The proposals have been met with dismay by some of the country’s landowners, notably Viscount Astor, the stepfather of Samantha Cameron, whose family owns the 20,000-acre Tarbert Estate on the island of Jura off Scotland’s west coast. Last month he described the plans as a “Mugabe-style land grab” which would wrest estates away from landowners and leave communities in the Highlands worse off.

The Bill, which has yet to be debated by MSPs at Holyrood, will also end the tax relief enjoyed by the owners of shooting and deerstalking estates, who ceased paying business rates in 1994 after being given an exemption by John Major’s Conservative government. Landowners have claimed re-introducing the tax could make some estates unprofitable and lead to unemployment.

The SNP has suggested that the money raised from scrapping the exemption could be pumped into the Scottish Land Fund, which is used to help support community buyouts of land, increasing its annual budget from £3m to £10m. A Scottish Land Reform Commission will also be established, to recommend further changes to land laws.

Andy Wightman, the land reform campaigner and author of Who Owns Scotland, said the changes were long overdue and could easily be applied across the rest of Britain. “Scotland is a very old nation, but a very unmodern one,” he said.

“We’ve never really settled down as a modern democracy to say ‘Look, we’ve got all this land, how should it be owned and used, how should it be governed, what kind of stake should people have in it?’ Other countries in Europe had that debate 150 or 200 years ago.”

The reforms follow hot on the heels of another important piece of land legislation passed by Holyrood last week. The Community Empowerment Bill gives local groups powers to take over vacant and derelict plots of land in towns and cities – with some arguing that these changes are actually more significant than the Land Reform Bill.

The second piece of legislation has perhaps gained more attention due to the profile of those who have spoken out in protest. The Duke of Buccleuch, Scotland’s largest private landowner, said the plans filled him with “absolute dismay” and that he intended to reduce the size of his estates in response. “Over the next five or 10 years I think we will reduce our exposure to land,” he added.

Former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth has also criticised the reforms, arguing that big sporting estates did the country an “enormous service” by maintaining employment in remote areas and that the status quo “worked well to the advantage of Scotland”.

David Johnstone, chairman of Scottish Land & Estates, which represents landowners across Scotland, said the reforms would result in “fundamental and far-reaching” changes to the way that land is managed and owned in Scotland and would not just affect the wealthy.

“Land reform campaigners continually say that too much land is owned by too few people. In reality, this legislation will have an impact on tens of thousands of people across Scotland who own and manage all sorts and sizes of land holdings,” he said.

The group is most concerned about the “right to buy” part of the reforms, which it says will effectively hand ministers in Edinburgh the power to remove property from a landowner if they are judged to be blocking development. It is this proposed change which has prompted accusations of an SNP “land grab”.

However, the Bill says this would only occur if a local community can convince ministers that removing the property from the landowner was likely to result in “significant benefit” to the public, and was the “only practicable way” of achieving this.

Land Reform Minister Aileen McLeod said the Bill was designed to ensure that the country’s land is “used in the public interest” and could be accessed by future generations for affordable food, housing and energy.

“At the heart of these proposals is the principle of responsibility that comes with all land ownership, and while there are many exemplary landowners in Scotland, the message is clear: it is no longer acceptable to own land in Scotland and not take the public responsibilities that come with that ownership seriously,” she added.

Scotland’s BIGGEST landowners:

The Duke of Buccleuch

Both the UK and Scotland’s largest private landowner, Richard Scott chairs the family trust-controlled Buccleuch Estates, which owns at least 220,000 acres north of the border. Its holdings include the 17th century Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries and Galloway, one of Scotland’s finest stately homes.

Anders Holch Povlsen

The Danish billionaire owns 150,000 acres of land in Scotland, including the 24,000-acre Ben Loyal and 18,000-acre Kinloch estates in Sutherland, making him the country’s second largest private landowner. He is the CEO of European fashion company Bestseller, which was founded by his parents in 1975.

Captain Alwyne Farquharson

The 16th laird and chieftain of the Clan Farquharson owns around 120,000 acres of Scottish land at Invercauld in Aberdeenshire, including a 26,000-acre grouse moor around Braemar Castle which is managed by the local community. Situated close to Balmoral, it featured in the 2006 film The Queen.

TLIO yurt at Yorkley Court 9 May 2015
See https://yorkleycourt.wordpress.com/

Tony Gosling – The Land Is Ours/Ecovillage Network UK
10-12 Picton Street. Montpelier, Bristol, BS6 5QA

Object: To begin the process of returning the land in the UK to the people to whom it rightly belongs.
Methodology: Given that land  and its associated rights – is a free gift to mankind as a whole  not to particular individuals, this legislation will begin the process of divesting particular individual and corporate freeholders of title to excessive amounts of that land and distributing it fairly to whoever amongst the poorest in the land wishes to have it

Current situation: With roughly 10% of the population of the UK owning 95% of the land many ordinary people are entirely without security; the strain on current housing stock means prices are spiralling out of all realistic measure of a homes actual worth and the need for more homes is only being restrained by a draconian development control system.

Historical models: There are two historical models which will be referred to throughout this bill, both occurring in and around the 1880s in the British Isles. Firstly the handing over of title to land in Ireland to impoverished tenants through a series of acts of parliament culminating in the Wyndham Acts. Secondly the enshrining in British law the customary practices of the Scottish crofters through the Royal Commission into the grievances of the Crofters and the subsequent Crofting Act.

Powerful landed interests: human beings can be particularly nasty and graspingly territorial when it comes to the idea of controlling or owning land. Dirty tricks and underhand tactics to dilute or stop such a bill progressing through to legal enactment must be expected and allowed for. At all times it must be explained to landowners affected by this and subsequent bills that their land is held from the crown; it is not their own; and that in almost every case has been gained historically in various unethical ways including as a crude reward for bloodshed.

Stages of the bill
The setting up of a land commission of 12 individuals with a proven track record in land rights and a UK government ministry of land with the task of ensuring that all Britains citizens have access to land.
The identification by the commission of Britains top 10 individual and corporate landowners and the opening by the ministry of a list of individuals in various degrees of housing need to take part in the land resettlement programme. These individual will be prioritised by a points system similar to that used on local authority housing lists.
The organising of people in the land resettlement list into clusters of like-minded individuals and the setting up of individual workers co-operatives using the same rules of succession and land management as in the Crofting Acts. Each Ecovillage will contain a proportion of at least 50% of the land as collectively managed but ideally more like 90% collectively managed.
The selection by the commission of 10% of large landowners land for reclaiming by the crown (the current ultimate landowner) into the crown estates.
The appointment by the commission of a further group of 7 experts in Permaculture, Bioregionalism, alternative technology and low-impact land use to divide reclaimed crown land into areas which can readily support between 500 and 1000 people with a density of roughly ¼ acre per individual. This Ecovillage commission will designate particular areas as village centres and arrange for the building of large meeting halls. They will also clear and landscaping rail/roadways to be completed by the villagers themselves.
The transfer of freehold from the crown estates to the new co-operatives and the apportioning of interest free land ministry loans repayable over at least 80 years to build on granted land.

The Land Is Ours – www.tlio.org.uk
Ecovillage Network UK – www.evnuk.org.uk

Thursday 21st — Monday 25th May 2015
At Tinkers Bubble

A five day camp exploring how Buddhism can help us along the path towards community and sustainability. With green crafts, engaged dharma, social change, forest school, healing area and a daily timetable of workshops, talks, meditation, yoga, qi gong, dance and music. An intimate gathering to deepen into ourselves and a wider awareness. Tools for the mind, skills for our future.

Transform, sustain, thrive: through our intentions we can engage in the world with a deepened awareness. We can mindfully sustain ourselves in our daily lives, in community and in the wider world. By seeing the interconnection of all things and feeling the benefit of sustaining all life, we can become empowered to thrive.

http://www.buddhafield.com/?events=green-earth-awakening-camp

Take a look either side of this gate. There is no indication from the National Mistrust as to what the ‘innocuous’ brown pillars are for! All rather too 1984 & Edward Snowden for my liking B-)

Peoples Parliament debate in Houses of Parliament, Westminster  with guest speakers : Kevin Cahill (author of ‘Who Owns Britain’ & associate editor of The Sunday Times Rich List), Fiona O’Cleirigh (freelance journalist), Yoni Higgsmith (Labour Land Campaign) & Tony Gosling (TLIO).

Tuesday March 17th 2015, 6.30pm – to 8.30pm, Committee Room 15  House of Commons

**Please allow at least 15 minutes to come through Parliament security. The nearest entrance is via St.Stephens Gate.**

Ref: http://thepeoplesparliament.me.uk/themes/land-ownership-owns-country/