No firefighter joins the fire and rescue service to prevent people from protesting, says Mark Chapman, FBU Southern regional secretary.
As a humanitarian service, our primary aim is to prevent suffering and loss caused by fires and other disasters.
But in recent years, we have seen repeated incidents of crews being called to assist the police in removing protestors. This is outside of the role of a firefighter, risking the public seeing us as an authoritarian arm of the law and losing trust.
Since 2023, a huge wave of protests has been organised in the UK calling for the government to stop arming Israel. Firefighters have repeatedly been called to assist police in removing activists from arms company factories that produce weapons used in the bombing of Palestine.
Earlier this year at an incident in Oxford, I saw how attendance at similar incidents can put fire crews in a difficult position.
Protestors had entered a library building, and firefighters were called to respond to an automatic fire alarm activation. When the fire service insisted on keeping crews on the scene, this spread confusion about their role in the incident – which reached the local press.
If there is no emergency; no fire, disaster, or rescue to perform, there is no need for firefighters to be on the scene. Dragging protestors off rooftops isn’t rescuing them, it’s assisting in their arrest.
The right to protest is a fundamental democratic right. Throughout our union’s 100-year history, firefighters have taken to the streets in our thousands to demand better pay, conditions and resisting attacks on our pensions.
By refusing to assist with the removal of protestors, we stand up for our role as a humanitarian service and our civil right to protest.
