Protests at Barclays
Young Friends pay the bank a visit
Quakers have held a Meeting for Worship in a high street bank as part of a protest against corporate tax avoidance. Around twenty Friends peacefully entered Barclay’s Bank in Cornmarket, Oxford, on Saturday and sat down in the public area.
Protests were held at Barclay’s branches across the UK after the company admitted to paying only around one per cent of its profits in tax. They said they had paid £113m in UK corporation tax in 2009 despite record profits of £11.6bn. This is legal due to the company’s financial arrangements, which involve subsidiary companies in the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and the Cayman Islands.
Most of the Friends involved in the Oxford protest were visiting the city for Young Friends’ General Meeting (YFGM), which took place over the weekend. They were joined by local supporters of UK Uncut, who argue that cracking down on tax avoidance is an alternative to the government’s cuts.
Chris Wood, a YFGM member from Nuneaton, told the Friend that the protest formed ‘part of a wider campaign to protect public services and oppose the cuts’.
The Friends spent around half an hour in the bank, including about ten minutes of Meeting for Worship. Police were called but allowed the protest to continue as long it did not block access to the bank. The Friends raised their concerns with customers and one family came over to join them.
Chris Wood said he considered the protest effective because it had helped customers and staff to make the links between corporate tax avoidance and cuts to public services. He insisted: ‘In taking this action, we were witnessing to a higher power that has created us all equal’.
Comments
Good for you. Well done.
By Susan B on 2nd March 2011 - 20:32
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