Foreign Office minister Mark Field has been suspended by Downing
Street after video footage showed him manhandling a
female climate change protester who had interrupted a City of
London event.
Widely shared video footage taken at Thursday night’s Mansion
House dinner showed Mr Field removing one of several dozen
Greenpeace protesters who had interrupted the event by pushing her
against a column before taking hold of the back of her neck and
marching her out of the room.
“Theresa May has seen the footage and found it very concerning,”
said a spokesman for the outgoing British prime minister.
A spokesman for the City of London police said it had received
“a small number of third party reports of allegations of an assault
taking place at the [Mansion House] event”, although the reports
had not come from the female protester herself.
Mr Field, in a statement to ITV, said he deeply regretted the
incident. He was also quoted as saying that “in the confusion many
guests understandably felt threatened and when one protester rushed
past me towards the top table I instinctively reacted”.
“There was no security present and I was for a split-second
genuinely worried she might have been armed,” he said.
The Mansion
House event[1], at which chancellor
Philip Hammond addressed bankers and other City grandees, was
interrupted by what Greenpeace said were 40 of its activists. Some
of the women, including the one manhandled by Mr Field, wore red
evening dresses with sashes that read “climate emergency”.
Areeba Hamid, speaking on behalf of Greenpeace UK, said: “We
were shocked at the footage of an elected MP and government
minister assaulting one of our peaceful protesters at the Mansion
House.”
“The protester in question was hoping to discuss climate change
and the economic reforms we need with the financiers and bankers at
the dinner.”
When the female protesters entered the room, male guests other
than Mr Field sought to block them from the table where Mr Hammond
and Bank of England governor Mark Carney were sitting by physically
apprehending them.
Some held on to the women to stop them while other male guests
pulled them. Photos taken at the event show male guests other than
Mr Field with their arms around female protesters’ shoulders, or
escorting them out of the dinner with a strong grip on their
arm.
A spokesman for the City of London Corporation, which oversees
Mansion House as it is the Lord Mayor’s residence, said: “We are
investigating last night’s breach of security and will be reviewing
arrangements for future events.”
The spokesman declined to comment when asked if any Mansion
House security staff had intervened to protect any female
protesters who may have been at risk of harm.
Peter Bottomley, a Conservative MP, “congratulated” Mr Field for
intervening. “She may have been harmless, others won’t be,” he told
the BBC. “Not intervening often has a cost and if it becomes a
fashion there will be casualties.”
However, some opposition MPs expressed outrage. Chuka Umunna,
the former Labour and Change UK MP who recently joined the Liberal
Democrats, described Mr Field’s conduct as “totally unacceptable”,
while independent MP Sarah Wollaston said it was “absolutely
shameful, a male MP marching a woman out of a room by her
neck”.
Labour MP Jess Phillips said in a tweet: “She posed no credible
threat from what I can see. There is very little else that could
justify this and anyone can see that this could have been done
without physical contact. Every MP has to deal with protest and
conflict; it is done with words.”
Ms Phillips added that, while she herself had felt under
physical threat from protesters at times, she had never resorted to
violence. “I have had people scream in my face, lash out and rage.
Never once have I retaliated with violence. It’s not my go-to to
get control.”
Mr Field, 54, has held several front bench roles since he became
MP for Cities of London and Westminster in 2001, including
opposition whip, shadow minister for London and shadow financial
secretary to the Treasury. In 2017, with his party in government,
he became minister of state for Asia and the Pacific at the Foreign
Office.
References
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Mansion House event
(www.ft.com)
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