Eco group boast of meetings with Labour officials after Starmer speech protest

Keir Starmer interrupted by climate protestors

Extremist eco-activists from the group Green New Deal Rising have boasted that their protest during a Sir Keir Starmer speech last month won them access to senior Labour figures.

Fatima Ibrahim, a top figure behind the Just Stop Oil-style protest group, has said the protest during Sir Keir’s speech led to them having multiple meetings with senior Labour officials and MPs, despite the embarrassment it caused the party leader.

Sir Keir has repeatedly denied Labour links with extremist eco groups, but the revelation of meetings calls that into question.

Sir Keir was left red-faced on July 6 when a speech intended to be about education reform was gatecrashed by Green New Deal Rising activists, who had managed to gatecrash the Labour Leader’s backdrop of young activists.

They unfurled a hidden banner while he was speaking, and could be heard demanding a “green new deal”.

READ MORE: Starmer red-faced after flagship speech thrown into chaos by eco-mob protesters

A young man slammed Sir Keir for abandoning Labour’s pledge to invest £28billion per year on green investment.

The protest, which was broadcast live across Sky and the BBC, saw the Labour leader accused of making “so many U-turns”.

Despite the humiliation, Fatima Ibrahim told Times Radio that the protest had been an effective way of forcing top-level meetings with the party

She said: “We’ve also had meetings with senior officials and Labour MPs off the back of that intervention and so that is just one of the ways that we make our presence known or voices heard, and our agenda heard but it’s not the only tactic.”

Ms Ibrahim specified one meeting was with Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who “was very receptive”.

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She said: “One of the things he communicated to us is that they are really serious about their climate plans and that no final decision had been made on some of our points around wealth tax, around green jobs and a national nature service, and ensuring that polluters pay for our transition. And we’re looking to have more meetings.”

Sir Keir previously denied reports that his top MP aide offered to meet with Just Stop Oil, describing the claim as “nonsense”.

This morning it emerged that Grant Shapps’s local MP office was targeted by a campaigner from Green New Deal Rising.

A message circulated around Mr Shapps’ local Tory association said the group had been targeted by a “young person who said she’d like to get involved with campaign”.

Staff became suspicious after she was persistent in asking about events.

A warning was sent out from Mr Shapps’s association, saying: “Presumably she was hoping to disrupt our activities in some way . . . We also received a similar call from someone else who also appears to be an environmental activist, probably with the same intention”.

Fatima Ibrahim told Times Radio: “We want to speak to politicians. But we live in a country where politicians are so detached from the public, they stage-manage their every appearance. So yes, we have undertaken disruptive tactics, but we’ve also for MPs who are ready to set up meetings through emails”.

Labour was approached for comment.

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