FINANCIAL TIMES: McLibel pair vow to continue campaign: “Now we have the right to scrutinise rich and powerful multinational corporations.” (ShellNews.net) Posted 16 Feb 05
By Jon Boone
Published: February 15 2005
Fifteen years after a postman and an unemployed gardener provoked the fury of McDonald’s by distributing highly uncomplimentary leaflets outside one of its restaurants, the “McLibel” pair chose a central London burger outlet to taunt the multinational on Tuesday.
Unfurling a banner that called for a celebration of 20 years of “global resistance to McWorld” Dave Morris and Helen Steel, the two indefatigable activists, praised what they saw as the “growing opposition to McDonald’s and all it stands for”.
This time round however there were no members of McDonald’s legal department on hand to issue any writs to the two self-styled anarchists and the closest anyone came to calling the police was when an infuriated cabbie stopped to point out that their press conference and resulting media scrum was illegally blocking the pavement.
Struggling to make herself heard above the din of the lunchtime traffic on the Strand - the site of the first ever picketing of the fast food chain in 1985 - Ms Steel said their epic legal battle and the revolution in Britain’s libel laws that the European Court of Human Justice’s verdict will prompt had done all journalists a favour.
Mr Morris said: “It will definitely benefit all the media and all those who wish to scrutinise companies who would otherwise be sending out libel writs the whole time.”
The former postman and union activist said grass roots campaigners would no longer have to mount their own defence against a company like McDonald’s, which is estimated to have spent about £10m on the original 314 day case.
“When we first sat down with lawyers in 1990 we were told that their was no question of free legal aid,” said Ms Steel. “The libel laws were stacked against us.”
“Now we have the right to scrutinise rich and powerful multinational corporations.”
McDonald’s was anxious to play down the significance of the case on Tuesday, pointing out that it was really against the British government rather than a company that had ‘moved on’ since the 1980s.
Mr Morris, however, was not so sure the burger giant, which has been rocked by growing public demands for corporate social responsibility and concern over rising levels of obesity, had changed its ways.
“Social responsibility policies are just ‘green-wash’. They are there to give the impression that companies are concerned but their fundamental business practices are the same. Profit for their shareholders is all that they care about,” said Mr Morris
”As long as McDonald’s exists we will continue to campaign against them.”