Craig Bennett

This clip is from a series of 100 life history interviews with environmental campaigners in the UK, 1970-2020. It will feature in a book published by UCL Press in 2026. The full interview, along with the rest of the collection will be searchable on the British Library’s Sound and Moving Image catalogue and the interviews will be accessible onsite at the British Library in St Pancras from February 2026. For more information visit www.royalholloway.ac.uk/ohemQuotation:Craig Bennett: And then in summer 2002, July I think it was, June, July, that’s when we went, Friends of the Earth had quite a big delegation going out to Johannesburg to be part of that World Summit on Sustainable Development. And I was out there for two or three weeks trying to push really hard to get those agreements about the need for greater corporate accountability as recognised in the UN system. And all we were after was some basic words around that. But it took a lot of effort to do that because like the US in particular was opposed to that. The EU was split down the middle. Developing countries really wanted to see greater corporate accountability but as ever in these big negotiations about these global summits there was lots of different things going on. It was quite funny in the run-up to the summit. By that stage Michael Meacher, I’ve mentioned before, he’d been this Environment Minister and been doing a very good job. John Prescott was Deputy Prime Minister and also heading up DEFRA at the time. And Michael Meacher was his more junior minister. But Michael Meacher was someone we’d got to know and trust and we thought he was doing a good job. And he was on our side. But I think Tony Blair was starting to think Michael Meacher was getting a bit too good and a bit too greeny. And it was obvious that there was, in the British press, the political press knew that there was a bit of tension between Tony Blair and Michael Meacher who he saw as a bit of old Labour and not New Laboury enough. So when it was coming up towards the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, Tony Blair was asked the question at the time about would Michael Meacher be part of the UK delegation. And I think he said something like, ‘Well we’ve got to be careful we don’t, the Government delegation isn’t too big.’ Tony Blair said this because he obviously was planning for Michael Meacher not to go, because he was the Environment Minister which was pretty scandalous. So it was one of those times at Friends of the Earth that we had to think very quickly how do we make sure Michael Meacher ends up going because it would be essential for success of the whole project? And Helen Burley, who was in our press office at the time at Friends of the Earth, came up with the brilliant idea, Tony Blair had said we’ve got to watch costs and taxpayers money and not spend too much, not have too many people. So Helen Burley said, ‘Well why doesn’t Friends of the Earth offer to pay for the Minister, Environment Minister to go so that it doesn’t cause problems for the taxpayer? But we’ll pick up the bill if need be.’ So we did that and that went everywhere with the news. And I think in twenty-four hours I did something like thirty radio interviews about the sheer idea of Michael Meacher coming to Johannesburg with Friends of the Earth and Friends of the Earth paying. And they were asking hilarious questions like, ‘If he was to come, if he was staying with you guys where would he stay?’ And they were enjoying the idea that it might not be the comfort that a British Minister would normally have. But the fact is it embarrassed Tony Blair into making sure that in the end that he had no reason left as to why the Environment Minister couldn’t go. So in the end Michael Meacher went to Johannesburg.Toby Butler: And did the Government pay for it? [laughing]Craig Bennett: And the Government paid for it of course. But actually what was nice about that is I think by that stage Michael Meacher felt a little bit like he owed us one because he got us there. So we were dealing quite closely with him around, for example, trying to get the corporate accountability clause in the text. And at that stage when Britain was part of the EU, we’d always negotiate it as a bloc, their position on these texts. And it was very important to us that Britain was broadly supportive of this taking place. But there were tensions in the EU whether to adopt it or not. And Michael Meacher told me at some point when we were out there that they were having a meeting of the Environment Ministers in the afternoon and that’s when they were going, amongst other things, discuss that clause. And he basically, he said, ‘But you know I don’t fully understand all the arguments.’ And he says, ‘Why don’t you come in and you’ll be able to let me know what’s going on.’ So I sat in for part, before the meeting started I thought he meant just before the meeting. But then it started to get the formal meeting and he says, ‘You’d better go down there’ by indicating that I sort of had to hide under the table when the meeting of the Environment Ministers started. [laughing] Of the EU Environment Ministers. Luckily it was in this posh hotel and they were all sitting in this circle. And there were big old tablecloths over these tables. So you couldn’t see under the tables. So I sat basically on Michael Meacher’s feet and, our British Environment Minister, and passed him notes during this meeting of the EU Environment Ministers during this discussion to suggest to him what he said at key points in this. And then when it- And where it got to in the EU meeting was that they would live with it, they didn’t really like this text but there were other issues that they thought were more important to oppose in the text. And then it went to break thank goodness and that’s when I had to try and find a way of getting out of the room without being noticed. So it was one of those curious things that happened. But at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Jo’burg in 2002, Friends of the Earth put on a really big effort. We built a, created a huge sort of corporate giant sculpture out of, did it as Friends of the Earth International, out of old trash, you know, smashed up cars and things, looking like it was trampling over hundreds and thousands of little people, which were sort of like little clay paper maché figurines that we’d hired people in Soweto to make for us as a sort of craft project. Joanna Watson in particular at Friends of the Earth kind of led the project coordination and making that happen. And that ended up being a big display right outside the conference centre which was pretty impressive. And we did end up winning that bit of text that called, in a big UN meeting called for greater corporate responsibility and accountability through national laws and international conventions and so on. And it, it wasn’t much but at that particular moment in time when there was a huge move under neoliberalism to try and move to deregulation, it was an important mark in the sand to say, actually no, the world’s governments did agree that there needed to be some form of accountability for corporations. Only a small thing but it’s something that we’ve used quite a lot of times since.British Library catalogue number: C2037/09 Project clip number: 131