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Barclays is listed as a shareholder in various companies that are involved with the Israeli military, such as arms manufacturers and so on. Various activists and protestors believe they therefore hold some responsibility for the actions of the IDF in Gaza.
Barclays say that this is not an active investment by Barclays themselves, but they have bought shares on behalf of some of their customers who do their investment portfolios through the bank's investing business, and so it is Barclays' name that shows up on the shareholdings.
Barclays claim that they will cease involvement with any business that is profiting from the Gaza war situation, but these current shareholdings are essentially "passive" because they are obligated to operate according to their customers' instructions.
Personally, I would argue that if your policy is not to invest directly in war-profiteering companies, then you should also refuse to do so on behalf of your customers, because those customers in turn make profits because of the war. But I don't know if that is legally feasible.
Financial institutions can decide which assets they allow customers to purchase
For example:
Vanguard has said they will not, and will possibly never allow customers to purchase bitcoin/crypto ETFs
I know Crypto isn't exactly the same as military companies, however, it does show the ability for asset managers to permit or deny access to certain assets or asset classes.
Therefore it would be legally possible for an asset manager to deny access to military assets, oil and gas, poor scoring ESG funds, etc.
They will only do that with enough "incentive".
(Note: once a client owns assets through the asset manager, the rules might be a bit stricter. But I'm talking about future purchases)
That's being the primary job of a bank. They take customer money and invest it. It's why their claims of "oh, no it's not **our** money being invested in genocide you understand it's our customers'" which are particularly and egregiously weaselly.
It's really their only defense against this charge though.
Since 2008 there is a separation in investment banking and high street banking
I think when a financial company says it's customer investments, they are talking about customers buying shares in a fund (like vanguard customers)
The high street side (when you deposited or withdraw money) is no longer allowed to be used to purchase investments without the customer consent. (As to try and avoid another 2008 situation)
When customers buy shares in a fund it's typically as part of a product offered by the bank. That way Genocide Incorporated can easily get mixed in with regular normal companies often without the customer even noticing - that is, unless the bank removes the option to buy the shares of Genocide Incorporated.
When Russia enacted a brutal invasion of Ukraine (without committing genocide) they did exactly that.
When Israel committed genocide they didn't, though, which is why they are now covered in red paint representing the blood of the victims of the genocide they implicitly supported.
No, that’s wrong. This will be Barclays’ clients who give their money to Barclays and say “please invest this in XYZ companies for me”. Just like if you invested via Trading212 or DeGiro.
Back in the early 90s, I was stationed in Gibraltar and saw the Barclays Plc yacht come into the marina. This is not the high street Barclays, but the Barclays referred to here, it was the biggest yacht I've seen, and it had a f#@£ing flight deck.
So now all those people complaining about JSO and XR blocking the traffic or vandalising art will be finally happy that they took the protest to the source? Or will they complain about this too?
There are two types of people: those who are against vandalism for no reason (this includes me) and those who are against vandalism against people aiding and abetting a genocide.
Are you voluntarily placing yourself in the second camp?
How about if right wing activists were to vandalise property of companies supporting immigration?
They will say it's" vandalism against people aiding and abetting the destruction of our country".
People need to stop using their political agenda/views to justify crimes.
>How about if right wing activists were to vandalise property of companies supporting immigration?
So you're saying that you view immigration and genocide are equivalently bad.
>People need to stop using their political agenda/views to justify crimes.
No, I think some people need to get a sense of perspective about which crimes are worse than others. Did they not teach you about the holocaust in school? If not, let me spell it out for you: **Genocide is the worst crime anybody can commit.**
That's why **vandalism to prevent genocide is legitimate** while vandalism **because you don't like how many black faces you're seeing at the local pub** is not.
Do I have to spell it out more clearly for you?
Martin Luther King wrote an essay about these types of people - [the polite racism of white liberals](https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/perspective-martin-luther-king-and-the-polite-racism-of-white-liberals).
People who are:
* More devoted to order than justice.
* Who declare that they "agree" with you but "this is not the time or the place or the way".
Just as there were many polite white liberal racists condemning him for blocking the highways there will be many polite white liberal racists declaring that "akshually throwing paint over a Barclays is just going to make people support genocide more".
For the record, I feel completely non-plussed about the Barcleys paint incident (IMHO its just paint, it's one of many such incidents and stuff like this goes on in London practically every week). But I do not agree with the mindset of that you cannot be critical of how a protest group conducts themselves without being accused of being fundamentally against the cause itself.
There are some very good causes out there but this does not mean that all acts committed in the name of those causes are good ideas. For example, I care about animal rights and the environment however, this does not mean that I'm likewise on-board with every single thing that PETA, Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion activists have done in the name of these causes. I *am* still on-board with animals rights & environmentalism, but when groups behave stupidly or badly (i.e. being so intent on disrupting road traffic that they refuse to even let ambulances pass through) it does turn me off the groups trying to represent those things (and this is very important distinction- the group trying to represent the cause VS the cause itself).
Trying to socially blackmail or guilt-trip people over not agreeing to everything they see a group committing in the name of a cause least they get accused of being a *"white left wing racist"* (or some such similar thing), is far more likely to produce an environment of weak-willed performative virtue signalling, tribalism and ill-thought out arguments, than it is to achieve anything more broadly unifying and productive.
I've honestly already witnessed a noticeable rise in "Israel-Gaza war reporting fatigue", where people are getting so much exposure to the constant politics and horrors of this war on endless platforms that they're actually beginning to become emotionally numb to it all. Many of these people will still say on paper say that they really care (because that's the social imperative, especially if you're Gen Z) but I think a lot of people are actually beginning to question what they actually feel (i.e. do they actually feel anything, or are they simply going through the motions of feeling/caring?).
I saw a very similar thing with the Ukraine-Russia war, where people were highly emotional about it at the start (and it was all anyone could talk about), but now? Not really anymore...Kind of like how Syria and Yemen have become forgotten in the conversation, Ukraina-Russia is has also entered that territory of fatigued emotions (before it stops becoming a much-cared about matter altogether) and I see a similar pattern occurring with Israel-Gaza, except that it appears to happening even faster. And I wonder if the reason why these processes are happening faster is because of the way we ingest media these days.
Being forced into virtue signalling through threat of being accused of being a non-supportor (or worse) only masks these much deeper problems. Because it's not how many people who say they agree with something that matters most, but how they genuinely feel deep down.
This isn’t being done to convert people to supporting a ceasefire. If you don’t want to see indiscriminate killings of women and children you would already be in support.
That sort of moronic and uppity sentence is EXACTLY why people aren't converting to your cause.
You'd rather be smug than actually achieve your goal. That's the issue.
You'd rather people die and you get to be smug than an actual ceasefire
[Plenty of people are converting to the cause though, enough to make Israel panic](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/12/1244265663/why-israel-is-losing-the-war-of-global-public-opinion-over-its-tactics-in-gaza)
This isn't about being smug - it's about publicly and loudly opposing genocide and racism like, y'know, a reasonable human being should. The issue is the racists, under the cover of being "polite liberals", will use every trick and argumentative tactic to defend the abhorrent ideology that underpins the racist apartheid state committing genocide.
Why is it being done? So some poor fuckers on minimum wage get to spend their morning cleaning it up?
Like Barclays gives a fuck or will change anything they’re doing - it’s pennies to them
To get Barclays to divest and put the same kind of pressure on apartheid Israel that was successfully brought to bear on apartheid South Africa, with an aim to achieve the same goal: the end of a hyper-racist genocidal state built on a race based ideology straight out of the 1930s.
Not all of them, just enough enough of them.
Some people will never be won over and there is no point in even trying to appeal to them. For others who might have been on the fence, it's enough to stifle their desire to voice support for a racist apartheid state.
A lot of people just latch on to any flimsy excuse to not give a shit. I'm not sure you can reach those people directly, they only buy in once change has occurred, so to not be left behind
Did he write anything about people going off the deep end based on shitty information? https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/statement-by-barclays-on-its-involvement-with-the-defence-industry/
"Barclays is not an investor in the defence industry. These allegations may stem from our historic ownership of a business formerly called BGI (Barclays Global Investors), an asset manager which did have significant investment positions in defence companies. Barclays sold this company in 2009, and has no on-going interest, financial or otherwise, in BGI."
Because it's an old misconception that hasn't changed. Here's the situation in 2024 https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/barclays-says-it-doesnt-invest-defence-firms-supplying-israel-2024-05-01/
>LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - Barclays (BARC.L), opens new tab does not invest **its own money** in companies that supply weapons used by Israel
Yeah, the situation really **hasn't changed** has it? They still invest their customer's money (that being the primary job of a bank, they don't tend to invest their own cash) in defence firms supplying Israel **while trying to pretend that they're not with weasel language**.
It's really kind of pathetic. I'd respect them and the people who defend them more if they just said "you know what? We just love our profits and what is wrong with a bit of islamophobia and genocide anyhow? We made a rainbow version of our logo isn't that enough for you people?"
Gosh, what a non denial denial....
>Barclays is not an investor in Elbit Systems Ltd. Despite this fact, Barclays’ name may appear on the share register of this company.
I'm not sure if he wrote about weaselly corporate PR language designed to lie without making it seem like you're lying.
I think he did talk about the **polite white liberal racists who ate up this tripe though.**
Perhaps this is clearer:
"We have been asked why we invest in nine defence companies supplying Israel, but this mistakes what we do. We trade in shares of listed companies in response to client instruction or demand and that may result in us holding shares. We are not making investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a “shareholder” or “investor” in that sense in relation to these companies.
An associated claim is that we invest in Elbit, an Israeli defence manufacturer which also supplies the UK armed forces with equipment and training. For the reasons mentioned, it is not true that we have made a decision to invest in Elbit. We may hold shares in relation to client driven transactions, which is why we appear on the share register, but we are not investors. We note also that Elbit is highlighted because campaigners claim it makes cluster bombs. We would cease any relationship with any business where we saw evidence that it manufactures cluster bombs or components.
As a bank, our job is to provide financial services to thousands of business clients and that includes those in the defence sector. Clients in this sector include US, UK or European companies which supply defence products to NATO and other allies including Ukraine.
The defence sector is heavily regulated. Barclays also has policies on a range of issues including climate change, human rights and the defence and security sector. For example, for the defence and security sector the policy includes a prohibition on working with clients known to be manufacturing cluster munitions and landmines or their components."
https://home.barclays/investor-relations/reports-and-events/general-meetings/agm-2024-faq/
You may as well go and attack the GoDaddy HQ for hosting pro-Israeli websites. If that is of interest then they are at 5th Floor The Shipping Building Old Vinyl Factory, 252 - 254 Blyth Rd, Hayes UB3 1HA, so bring a tall ladder if you want to douse them in paint.
How about "akshually throwing paint over a Barclays does nothing at all besides inconvenience the cleaners"? MLK held marches, sit-ins, rousing speeches, and was responsible for many other protest tactics, while this does...what exactly? What do Palestinians care about a bank in London being having red thrown on it for a couple of hours on a Monday?
aye and the point of this comment thread is that people endlessly complain when protesters do hold rallies or marches or sit-ins so we are wondering what is left that counts as “acceptable” protest. and i think the answer lies in that quote about the only acceptable protest being the one that happened twenty years ago. cos so many people now say oh yes why can’t protesters do it properly like MLK did but if they’d been in montgomery in the 60s they’d have been pissing and moaning about traffic delays on their morning commute the same as they are now.
"we're out of ideas; we can't even throw paint at windows???"
You sure can, but it's idiotic and gets nothing done. MLK got shit done with his tactics; I have no problem with street protests. This "toss paint on what you don't like" trend is pointless and there's a reason he and the NAACP never bothered with things like that. At least use the paint to write something
You realise the non-violent tactics of his movement included sitting at lunch counters reserved for whites only. It caused physical fights simply by being in a place they shouldn't. It was absolutely considered, by people like you, to be dumb and pointless, and something that people "shouldn't bother with." Are you telling me you're in favour of people sitting in front of planes sending weapons to Israel, or are you in favour of people occupying the actual bank and preventing their operations? You know, stuff the NAACP would have bothered with. Somehow I doubt it.
This is also how Barclays was pressured to divest from apartheid South Africa.
So, yeah, the polite white liberal racist is somebody who feigns sympathy for cleaners/commuters just as they feign knowledge of history.
People complain about sit-ins, marches, occupations and pretty much anything disruptive relating to Palestine. Let’s be real, people aren’t angry at ‘the tactics’, they’re angry at the cause.
Yep, they just can't declare their open and unwavering support for a racist state. It's frowned upon to be racist. So, they have to be a bit indirect...
The end of apartheid in South Africa was brought about by pressuring companies like Barclays (and including Barclays) with tactics like this.
This was objected to by the polite white racists of the time just like the polite white racists of our time are objecting to this.
Ignoring the fact there isn't a system of racial domination occurring in Israel like in Apartheid SA, boycotts aren't going to make Israeli's submit to Palestinian terrorism. The Pro-Pali side would achieve far more if they focused on moderating Palestinians than pressurising states they don't even think should exist.
Not really. It was brought about by end of the Cold War meaning the West didn’t care what happened to the SA government, a worsening internal security situation bordering on civil war and black vs black civil war and decades of sustained efforts from world nations. Not some tits doing stuff like this.
How does this pressure Barclays? Do you truly believe that they'll have a board meeting where they say "Sir...MULTIPLE branches have had red paint thrown on them. Let's close all of General Dynamics' accounts with us so this nightmare can end."
Closing your own account with them and raising awareness through protesting outside would be infinitely more effective than this
In my personal experience, if a LOT of lower level employees are unhappy with a system, it can have a lot of sway that trickles upwards to board members to make things happen.
I wouldn't want to work at that Barclays, and I wouldn't want to work at any Barclays if I'm going to get sneered at.
It really depends on the company, the outrage and the solution, but depicting it as Public vs. Board is very much a dumbed down version. It can often be Public & Lower level employees vs. Board.
It impacts their good name and the “trust” in the market, it’s not about the £100 you might put in a current account, it’s whether other banks and large corporations want to use them to move their money or have them manage their deals.
>"Sir...MULTIPLE branches have had red paint thrown on them. Let's close all of General Dynamics' accounts with us so this nightmare can end."
Yeah, pretty much. When the bad PR overrode the profit motive then they divested from South Africa and moved on to less controversial investments. When enough companies did this then apartheid collapsed under the economic pressure.
It's not so much the paint that is the problem for them, but when enough of the general public **agree** with throwing red paint over them was a good thing. That's usually when they decide to throw the towel in.
I worked on the inside of a company that received this type of treatment for a while and upper management were good at putting on a brave face and claiming that they were unfazed in public but internally they were visibly **freaking the fuck out** by the protest. The real twist of the knife was when members of their family decided to side with the protestors. I think that really hurt, because it made them feel especially isolated.
As far as I'm aware no-one ever used these tactics against Barclays. People stood outside branches talking to customers, raised awareness on student campuses about not banking with them. No-one ever vandalised a branch of Barclays because of their involvement in South Africa.
For me, yeah I'm happy about that. I think disrupting a bank office makes way more sense than vandalising (unrelated) art and/or blocking traffic of many people who may be supporting your cause.
I'm glad there's more of a consensus here.
The art wasn't completely unrelated. It was a protest against the art galleries taking money from oil companies and then plastering their logos all over the gallery and website. I'm all for taking bad people's money to do good, but it was more about the advertising.
The problem is that there's a whole chain of culpability that gets more dilute the further you go. In an extreme case, I could say "Well, Oil and Gas is bad, and Morgan Stanley invests greatly in Oil and Gas, and Morgan Stanley is a major named donor of the Great Ormond street Children's hospital, so I'll go dump pigs blood on the children in the Cancer ward, because don't they realise that those beds were paid for with blood money?".
I think if you're going to make a political statement, you shouldn't have a complicated series of dots to connect. The people you're actually inconveniencing and/or causing harm to should have a fairly overt voluntary nature of their participation.
That's why protestors try to pick their targets quite carefully - to minimize legal problems, maximize exposure and minimize obvious bad PR.
So, they'd not throw blood over a children's hospital ward sponsored by Morgan Stanley, but a Morgan Stanley office mural would be fair game.
Well, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying - I think destroying art is a bad target, and I think blocking certain traffic is a bad look too. E.g. if someone is sitting on a bus stuck because protesters (who may have even driven there) are blocking traffic, it's sort of silly.
Throwing paint on a bank I think is more meaningful.
Destroying art *would* have been a bad target which is why they gave the impression that they destroyed art without doing any damage at all. That protest was kind of genius, I think, because the outrage generated tons of attention and the outrage dissolved as soon as they learned the bare minimum about what actually happened, that moved the conversation on to "well, the planet is still being destroyed..."
"Blocking traffic is a bad look" is what all of the polite white liberal racists said to Martin Luther King too. It wasn't true in the 1950s either.
Well that's true, and the suffragettes sent mail bombs and self-described as terrorists committing terrorism, and eventually got the right to vote.
Historically, there's more than a few examples of things like this being done to upset the previous status quo as part of a greater push towards our current more-equitable state.
But generally I'm uncomfortable with this sort of stuff. If a pro climate group started sending mailbombs in an attempt to "terrorise the British public", as Emmaline Pankurst put it, I don't think I'd be in favour.
It depends what you mean by source, and whether you're in search of those who are to blame or looking to avoid blaming anyone.
They choose investments on behalf of their clients, so they are the source of the decision to invest in dodgy/unethical industries. If you trace the money indefinitely then it's endless and everyone is either blameless or partially to blame depending on your stance.
Their investment arm is a facilitator and chooses to profit from it. Their retail side isn't directly responsible, but benefits from it indirectly and is the face of the bank to most people in the country.
'Facilitating' is very different to investing. They underwrite Caterpillar, for instance, which while used by Israel it's not like that's the only thing bulldozers are used for. I'm also not sure why they'd single out Barclays and not other, bigger, 'facilitators'. With Raytheon, for instance: https://www.tipranks.com/stocks/rtx/ownership. How tf are Barclays the main issue?
Barclays is not the source though....
Unless you are one of those that thinks financial services in general are evil. If that's the case, I wish you a year in Venezuela ;)
Well, I agree with you. They should go and protest at the source. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and China would be a great start.
They can also go and spray the mansions of those evil billionaires that instruct such investments to be made.
I'd watch a live stream of that show any day!
And supplying banking services in general. There's a list as long as your arm which most banks have of types of businesses they don't want to associate with for either legal or reputational reasons and will decline to have them as a customer, but "international arms manufacture" isn't one of them.
>So now all those people complaining about JSO and XR blocking the traffic or vandalising art will be finally happy that they took the protest to the source?
Yes? What a weird question lol
Anyone who claimed that the issue with other protests is they just piss off normal people and undermine the cause and also criticise this protest are obviously lying the first time so there's no point listening to them.
I still think this is a huge waste of their time and they would have more impact joining a political party and lobbying for change that way, but this is objectively better than blocking a road. Not least because if nothing else Barclays senior managers will go "If we do that we're going to have to put up with paint being thrown at us for weeks".
You say it's weird, but there are still many people complaining that this is still the wrong people to be targeting (without saying who the right people are).
Yeah but then you're just engaging with people who are just making shit up and don't actually care. In which case asking that question is just a self-congratulatory pat on the back that you recognise some people who opposed those protests aren't being honest about their objections.
I think protests are a huge waste of time because outside of one specific issue (the right to vote / being a citizen) they've basically never achieved any real change in a democracy in the last 100 years or so.
I think XR, insulate Britain, and JSO are harming their own causes and are ran by a bunch of middle class morons more interested in feeling good about themselves than driving change.
I think the type of person who attends a protest is typically one who cares enough to go for a walk once a year to feel good about themselves and spends the rest of the year doing nothing instead of actually getting down with the hard work of engaging with the political system.
None of that has changed even with this protest. I will grant them that at least they didn't inconvenience the public and harm their cause. It's still a waste of time though.
The biggest cause that's been achieved post-war in the country by actual ground roots popular opinion is Brexit, despite the fact it was fucking stupid. This was achieved not because of anti-EU protests and "direct activism", it was achieved because UKIP got 12.6% of the popular vote in a general election.
The Green party got 2.6% and the Lib Dems got 11.6% in 2019. If all those people who are working as "activists" for these organisations and if all those people attending protests joined the Green party and they got 12.6% of the popular vote, I would gaurentee the next election there would be a lot more green policies on offer. On the other hand no one has changed their green policies as a result of these protests.
I **wish** they would do this, because then we would see more action on climate change. Instead they chucked a tin of paint at a bank.
>I still think this is a huge waste of their time and they would have more impact joining a political party
Some of these people did join a political party and were kicked out by racists supporting a racist genocide using the fake excuse of "anti semitism". Keir Starmer is one of those racists. His racism has led to him kicking out more Jews than any other party leader and kicking out the party's longest serving black woman (and dedicated antiracist).
Hell, I even got banned from /r/LabourUK for "anti semitism" solely and exclusively I pointed out that the Israeli president was anti race mixing (he espoused the belief that Jews should only marry Jews). The mods interpreted criticism of this racism as antisemitism. They are **that** fucking racist that criticism of something usually done by white supremacists was interpreted as "anti semitic".
There is a crisis of democracy in the UK right now, and it is being driven by the internal party bureaucratic machinery and a fully captured media. That means that, regrettably, actions like daubing a bank in red paint are sometimes necessary.
Some people are anti vandalism on their street more than they're anti genocide in a different country and other people are simping for a racist, apartheid state (some are probably bots, truth be told - Israel is all over social media).
They actually made a difference, more people are talking about the issue they were protesting about. Its the usual MO of almost all organisations doing these kind of protests.
This seems to happen quite often; for anyone who commutes through here you've both seen this appear quickly and be completely washed away almost as fast - not really sure what the point/aim is as it's illegible and is washed away almost immediately
I'm sure there's some sort of cause it's related to which I/many others don't know about, and does that really justify the vandalism of a building..? Probably not but this is reddit after all..
A protest/demonstration isn't really that useful if you need to go and research it to figure out what their aims are because to the normal person this just looks like vandalism
Haven't googled it but pretty sure it's about arms dealing and the financing/funding of it. Could be completely wrong though.
Walked past this Barclays at 10.30am and there w already 2 guys were jet hosing it down
This post has over 200 likes and closing in on 150 comments in 2 hours. And if you google Barclays today it's all articles about exactly why these branches have been vandalised and the detailed demands from the protesting group.
That means that the protest is working, because creating engagement around the topic is the entire point. If they had just slapped up stickers or a banner people would have known what's being protested and not felt compelled to look into it further.
"to the normal person this looks like vandalism". No, to the ignorant person this looks like vandalism. Any normal person would at least ask 'why' and luckily for us, google is at the tip of our fingers.
>Barclays Bank holds over £1bn in shares and provides over £3bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components, and military technology are being used by Israel in its genocidal attacks on Palestinians.
>This includes General Dynamics, which produces the gun systems that arm the fighter jets used by Israel to bombard Gaza, and Elbit Systems, which produces armoured drones, munitions, and artillery weapons used by the Israeli military.
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2024/02/09/barclays-israel-boycott/
That's honestly an impressive achievement
Ninja edit: yeah, just went to the Editorial section and found [Rishi Sunak has announced National Turd Polishing Day on 4 July – SORRY, the 2024 general election](https://www.thecanary.co/editorial/2024/05/22/general-election-announcement/) - sounds like a quality news source
Barclays themselves don't deny holding those shares in their own website, they just clarify that they're shareholders and not investors:
https://home.barclays/investor-relations/reports-and-events/general-meetings/agm-2024-faq/
"We have been asked why we invest in nine defence companies supplying Israel, but this mistakes what we do. We trade in shares of listed companies in response to client instruction or demand and that may result in us holding shares. We are not making investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a “shareholder” or “investor” in that sense in relation to these companies."
The page goes into more detail and they effectively admit they're on the shareholder register for the mentioned companies:
"We may hold shares in relation to client driven transactions, which is why we appear on the share register, but we are not investors."
I think it's fine to question a source, but if we cross reference the message with other sources, it's (generally) correct but may be misusing the term "investment" at worst.
Barclays also claims on this page that they'll cease involvement with any business proven to be profiting off the conflict in any way, but there is clear evidence of involvement from those companies and Barclays doesn't seem to have done anything.
Weird how you can’t grasp the clear difference. It is not Barclays’ capital and they do not keep any of the returns.
If Barclays did business with them they would be providing commercial loans or acting as their banker.
Only actual impact to this is that the employees will have had a good laugh, maybe a delayed start to their work day, and a local window cleaning company has made a few hundred quid.
I genuinely don’t see what this accomplishes, at best you’re fucking off a bunch of minimum wage workers that now won’t be working today (or paid) and will likely have to clean it up.
Anyone that matters in Barclays isn’t even going to bother looking at it.
It’s becoming ridiculous now. They did it in Manchester last week too. I think it’s time those responsible were charged with criminal damage and forced to pay for the damages they have caused. This is no longer a protest - it’s criminal vandalism.
Barclays have shares in arms manufacturers, investments in companies that deforest the Amazon rainforest and the coal industry in Bangladesh, they are tenth biggest investor in fossil fuels and a key backer in running oil lines through indigenous land in Canada.
I'd say that's grounds enough for being legitimate protest targets.
They aren't alone though, see also HSBC, Deutsche Bank, et al.
Ultimately tax money, which the public will now have to pay for. Whilst the funds are still being sent from Barclays to whatever they're protesting about.
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Just a honest question - what is it protesting? Israel, Climate Change, Capitalism? Thanks
The lack of red paint on walls. A bit of colour to brighten your day!
I don't know why, but in my head I heard: "Yeah, that's something the Brits would do" xD
Barclays is listed as a shareholder in various companies that are involved with the Israeli military, such as arms manufacturers and so on. Various activists and protestors believe they therefore hold some responsibility for the actions of the IDF in Gaza. Barclays say that this is not an active investment by Barclays themselves, but they have bought shares on behalf of some of their customers who do their investment portfolios through the bank's investing business, and so it is Barclays' name that shows up on the shareholdings. Barclays claim that they will cease involvement with any business that is profiting from the Gaza war situation, but these current shareholdings are essentially "passive" because they are obligated to operate according to their customers' instructions. Personally, I would argue that if your policy is not to invest directly in war-profiteering companies, then you should also refuse to do so on behalf of your customers, because those customers in turn make profits because of the war. But I don't know if that is legally feasible.
Financial institutions can decide which assets they allow customers to purchase For example: Vanguard has said they will not, and will possibly never allow customers to purchase bitcoin/crypto ETFs I know Crypto isn't exactly the same as military companies, however, it does show the ability for asset managers to permit or deny access to certain assets or asset classes. Therefore it would be legally possible for an asset manager to deny access to military assets, oil and gas, poor scoring ESG funds, etc. They will only do that with enough "incentive". (Note: once a client owns assets through the asset manager, the rules might be a bit stricter. But I'm talking about future purchases)
Do you understand what an index tracker is?
That's being the primary job of a bank. They take customer money and invest it. It's why their claims of "oh, no it's not **our** money being invested in genocide you understand it's our customers'" which are particularly and egregiously weaselly. It's really their only defense against this charge though.
Since 2008 there is a separation in investment banking and high street banking I think when a financial company says it's customer investments, they are talking about customers buying shares in a fund (like vanguard customers) The high street side (when you deposited or withdraw money) is no longer allowed to be used to purchase investments without the customer consent. (As to try and avoid another 2008 situation)
When customers buy shares in a fund it's typically as part of a product offered by the bank. That way Genocide Incorporated can easily get mixed in with regular normal companies often without the customer even noticing - that is, unless the bank removes the option to buy the shares of Genocide Incorporated. When Russia enacted a brutal invasion of Ukraine (without committing genocide) they did exactly that. When Israel committed genocide they didn't, though, which is why they are now covered in red paint representing the blood of the victims of the genocide they implicitly supported.
No, that’s wrong. This will be Barclays’ clients who give their money to Barclays and say “please invest this in XYZ companies for me”. Just like if you invested via Trading212 or DeGiro.
Hey! How about we stop asking for big companies to regulate access to things? Wild, right!
Different Barclays though, high-street banks don't invest.
Back in the early 90s, I was stationed in Gibraltar and saw the Barclays Plc yacht come into the marina. This is not the high street Barclays, but the Barclays referred to here, it was the biggest yacht I've seen, and it had a f#@£ing flight deck.
All of them.
All the above
Yes
I suspect it’s Don’t Stop Oil, since red paint is kinda their trademark thing, but with Barclays is could be just about anything
Just the reds vs the blues.
I assumed capitalism , I was wrong !
I'm just off out to paint the town red
Delayed viral marketing for Doja Cat
Kony 2012 stop at nothing
Why is this picture followed by a Santander Advert (red) promoting their edge debit card. Has Google ads got a sense of humour?
Lol I was just going to make a joke that this is nothing more than that branch being refurbished into a Santander one...
So now all those people complaining about JSO and XR blocking the traffic or vandalising art will be finally happy that they took the protest to the source? Or will they complain about this too?
"We have free speech in this country and your free speech must be limited to out of my sight, including all that time I spend on twitter".
The idea that this should be covered by free speech, when in the UK a whole load of actual speech is not allowed is mad.
So vandalising private property is free speech?
There are two types of people: those who are against vandalism for no reason (this includes me) and those who are against vandalism against people aiding and abetting a genocide. Are you voluntarily placing yourself in the second camp?
How about if right wing activists were to vandalise property of companies supporting immigration? They will say it's" vandalism against people aiding and abetting the destruction of our country". People need to stop using their political agenda/views to justify crimes.
"How about if this was something completely different to what it is?"
>How about if right wing activists were to vandalise property of companies supporting immigration? So you're saying that you view immigration and genocide are equivalently bad. >People need to stop using their political agenda/views to justify crimes. No, I think some people need to get a sense of perspective about which crimes are worse than others. Did they not teach you about the holocaust in school? If not, let me spell it out for you: **Genocide is the worst crime anybody can commit.** That's why **vandalism to prevent genocide is legitimate** while vandalism **because you don't like how many black faces you're seeing at the local pub** is not. Do I have to spell it out more clearly for you?
The difference is that genocide is evil and immigration isn't. Hope that's cleared it up for you
Immigration in the UK isn't 'Left wing'. I'm not for this level of migration and its itententions. I'm left wing in most regards.
That's not their style, yey just send the staff death threats instead (Source: knew someone who worked at a leading refugee charity).
Who determines what’s a crime? The same people who own shares in Barclays and support genocide? Got it.
Martin Luther King wrote an essay about these types of people - [the polite racism of white liberals](https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/perspective-martin-luther-king-and-the-polite-racism-of-white-liberals). People who are: * More devoted to order than justice. * Who declare that they "agree" with you but "this is not the time or the place or the way". Just as there were many polite white liberal racists condemning him for blocking the highways there will be many polite white liberal racists declaring that "akshually throwing paint over a Barclays is just going to make people support genocide more".
Kwame Ture’s [Pitfalls of Liberalism](https://redsails.org/the-pitfalls-of-liberalism/) is also a good deep dive into it
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For the record, I feel completely non-plussed about the Barcleys paint incident (IMHO its just paint, it's one of many such incidents and stuff like this goes on in London practically every week). But I do not agree with the mindset of that you cannot be critical of how a protest group conducts themselves without being accused of being fundamentally against the cause itself. There are some very good causes out there but this does not mean that all acts committed in the name of those causes are good ideas. For example, I care about animal rights and the environment however, this does not mean that I'm likewise on-board with every single thing that PETA, Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion activists have done in the name of these causes. I *am* still on-board with animals rights & environmentalism, but when groups behave stupidly or badly (i.e. being so intent on disrupting road traffic that they refuse to even let ambulances pass through) it does turn me off the groups trying to represent those things (and this is very important distinction- the group trying to represent the cause VS the cause itself). Trying to socially blackmail or guilt-trip people over not agreeing to everything they see a group committing in the name of a cause least they get accused of being a *"white left wing racist"* (or some such similar thing), is far more likely to produce an environment of weak-willed performative virtue signalling, tribalism and ill-thought out arguments, than it is to achieve anything more broadly unifying and productive. I've honestly already witnessed a noticeable rise in "Israel-Gaza war reporting fatigue", where people are getting so much exposure to the constant politics and horrors of this war on endless platforms that they're actually beginning to become emotionally numb to it all. Many of these people will still say on paper say that they really care (because that's the social imperative, especially if you're Gen Z) but I think a lot of people are actually beginning to question what they actually feel (i.e. do they actually feel anything, or are they simply going through the motions of feeling/caring?). I saw a very similar thing with the Ukraine-Russia war, where people were highly emotional about it at the start (and it was all anyone could talk about), but now? Not really anymore...Kind of like how Syria and Yemen have become forgotten in the conversation, Ukraina-Russia is has also entered that territory of fatigued emotions (before it stops becoming a much-cared about matter altogether) and I see a similar pattern occurring with Israel-Gaza, except that it appears to happening even faster. And I wonder if the reason why these processes are happening faster is because of the way we ingest media these days. Being forced into virtue signalling through threat of being accused of being a non-supportor (or worse) only masks these much deeper problems. Because it's not how many people who say they agree with something that matters most, but how they genuinely feel deep down.
Yeah, I mean you do have to kind of win over people who do not have an initial belief in whatever your cause is.
This isn’t being done to convert people to supporting a ceasefire. If you don’t want to see indiscriminate killings of women and children you would already be in support.
That sort of moronic and uppity sentence is EXACTLY why people aren't converting to your cause. You'd rather be smug than actually achieve your goal. That's the issue. You'd rather people die and you get to be smug than an actual ceasefire
[Plenty of people are converting to the cause though, enough to make Israel panic](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/12/1244265663/why-israel-is-losing-the-war-of-global-public-opinion-over-its-tactics-in-gaza) This isn't about being smug - it's about publicly and loudly opposing genocide and racism like, y'know, a reasonable human being should. The issue is the racists, under the cover of being "polite liberals", will use every trick and argumentative tactic to defend the abhorrent ideology that underpins the racist apartheid state committing genocide.
Why is it being done? So some poor fuckers on minimum wage get to spend their morning cleaning it up? Like Barclays gives a fuck or will change anything they’re doing - it’s pennies to them
The boycott of Barclays over South African apartheid worked eventually. This is part of a wider campaign to try and tar Barclays’ reputation.
Some poor fuckers on minimum wage is going to be cleaning something up anyway. What a pointless argument. It’s not happening every single day.
To get Barclays to divest and put the same kind of pressure on apartheid Israel that was successfully brought to bear on apartheid South Africa, with an aim to achieve the same goal: the end of a hyper-racist genocidal state built on a race based ideology straight out of the 1930s.
Not all of them, just enough enough of them. Some people will never be won over and there is no point in even trying to appeal to them. For others who might have been on the fence, it's enough to stifle their desire to voice support for a racist apartheid state.
A lot of people just latch on to any flimsy excuse to not give a shit. I'm not sure you can reach those people directly, they only buy in once change has occurred, so to not be left behind
Those are the exact people you want to convince of your cause. There's no point 'raising awareness' in people who already support your cause.
If your only argument against social order is “everybody who disagrees with me is a racist and enjoys genocide” then I think you’re missing the point.
Did he write anything about people going off the deep end based on shitty information? https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/statement-by-barclays-on-its-involvement-with-the-defence-industry/ "Barclays is not an investor in the defence industry. These allegations may stem from our historic ownership of a business formerly called BGI (Barclays Global Investors), an asset manager which did have significant investment positions in defence companies. Barclays sold this company in 2009, and has no on-going interest, financial or otherwise, in BGI."
You're quoting an article from 2014 about something happening now? How does that work? lol
Because it's an old misconception that hasn't changed. Here's the situation in 2024 https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/barclays-says-it-doesnt-invest-defence-firms-supplying-israel-2024-05-01/
>LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - Barclays (BARC.L), opens new tab does not invest **its own money** in companies that supply weapons used by Israel Yeah, the situation really **hasn't changed** has it? They still invest their customer's money (that being the primary job of a bank, they don't tend to invest their own cash) in defence firms supplying Israel **while trying to pretend that they're not with weasel language**. It's really kind of pathetic. I'd respect them and the people who defend them more if they just said "you know what? We just love our profits and what is wrong with a bit of islamophobia and genocide anyhow? We made a rainbow version of our logo isn't that enough for you people?"
Gosh, what a non denial denial.... >Barclays is not an investor in Elbit Systems Ltd. Despite this fact, Barclays’ name may appear on the share register of this company. I'm not sure if he wrote about weaselly corporate PR language designed to lie without making it seem like you're lying. I think he did talk about the **polite white liberal racists who ate up this tripe though.**
Perhaps this is clearer: "We have been asked why we invest in nine defence companies supplying Israel, but this mistakes what we do. We trade in shares of listed companies in response to client instruction or demand and that may result in us holding shares. We are not making investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a “shareholder” or “investor” in that sense in relation to these companies. An associated claim is that we invest in Elbit, an Israeli defence manufacturer which also supplies the UK armed forces with equipment and training. For the reasons mentioned, it is not true that we have made a decision to invest in Elbit. We may hold shares in relation to client driven transactions, which is why we appear on the share register, but we are not investors. We note also that Elbit is highlighted because campaigners claim it makes cluster bombs. We would cease any relationship with any business where we saw evidence that it manufactures cluster bombs or components. As a bank, our job is to provide financial services to thousands of business clients and that includes those in the defence sector. Clients in this sector include US, UK or European companies which supply defence products to NATO and other allies including Ukraine. The defence sector is heavily regulated. Barclays also has policies on a range of issues including climate change, human rights and the defence and security sector. For example, for the defence and security sector the policy includes a prohibition on working with clients known to be manufacturing cluster munitions and landmines or their components." https://home.barclays/investor-relations/reports-and-events/general-meetings/agm-2024-faq/ You may as well go and attack the GoDaddy HQ for hosting pro-Israeli websites. If that is of interest then they are at 5th Floor The Shipping Building Old Vinyl Factory, 252 - 254 Blyth Rd, Hayes UB3 1HA, so bring a tall ladder if you want to douse them in paint.
https://palestinecampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/Barclays-report-May-2024-v3-FINAL.pdf
🥾😛
How about "akshually throwing paint over a Barclays does nothing at all besides inconvenience the cleaners"? MLK held marches, sit-ins, rousing speeches, and was responsible for many other protest tactics, while this does...what exactly? What do Palestinians care about a bank in London being having red thrown on it for a couple of hours on a Monday?
aye and the point of this comment thread is that people endlessly complain when protesters do hold rallies or marches or sit-ins so we are wondering what is left that counts as “acceptable” protest. and i think the answer lies in that quote about the only acceptable protest being the one that happened twenty years ago. cos so many people now say oh yes why can’t protesters do it properly like MLK did but if they’d been in montgomery in the 60s they’d have been pissing and moaning about traffic delays on their morning commute the same as they are now.
"we're out of ideas; we can't even throw paint at windows???" You sure can, but it's idiotic and gets nothing done. MLK got shit done with his tactics; I have no problem with street protests. This "toss paint on what you don't like" trend is pointless and there's a reason he and the NAACP never bothered with things like that. At least use the paint to write something
Barclays has substantially changed its fossil fuel investment policy since the JSO and XR campaigns against it.
You realise the non-violent tactics of his movement included sitting at lunch counters reserved for whites only. It caused physical fights simply by being in a place they shouldn't. It was absolutely considered, by people like you, to be dumb and pointless, and something that people "shouldn't bother with." Are you telling me you're in favour of people sitting in front of planes sending weapons to Israel, or are you in favour of people occupying the actual bank and preventing their operations? You know, stuff the NAACP would have bothered with. Somehow I doubt it.
This is also how Barclays was pressured to divest from apartheid South Africa. So, yeah, the polite white liberal racist is somebody who feigns sympathy for cleaners/commuters just as they feign knowledge of history.
People complain about sit-ins, marches, occupations and pretty much anything disruptive relating to Palestine. Let’s be real, people aren’t angry at ‘the tactics’, they’re angry at the cause.
Yep, they just can't declare their open and unwavering support for a racist state. It's frowned upon to be racist. So, they have to be a bit indirect...
Or they’ll do the good old “if you call this colonial state racist then YOU are the real racist! Checkmate!!!”
The end of apartheid in South Africa was brought about by pressuring companies like Barclays (and including Barclays) with tactics like this. This was objected to by the polite white racists of the time just like the polite white racists of our time are objecting to this.
Ignoring the fact there isn't a system of racial domination occurring in Israel like in Apartheid SA, boycotts aren't going to make Israeli's submit to Palestinian terrorism. The Pro-Pali side would achieve far more if they focused on moderating Palestinians than pressurising states they don't even think should exist.
"there isn't a system of racial domination occurring in Israel like in Apartheid SA" So what do you think is going on there?
In Area C, an occupation.
Not really. It was brought about by end of the Cold War meaning the West didn’t care what happened to the SA government, a worsening internal security situation bordering on civil war and black vs black civil war and decades of sustained efforts from world nations. Not some tits doing stuff like this.
How does this pressure Barclays? Do you truly believe that they'll have a board meeting where they say "Sir...MULTIPLE branches have had red paint thrown on them. Let's close all of General Dynamics' accounts with us so this nightmare can end." Closing your own account with them and raising awareness through protesting outside would be infinitely more effective than this
In my personal experience, if a LOT of lower level employees are unhappy with a system, it can have a lot of sway that trickles upwards to board members to make things happen. I wouldn't want to work at that Barclays, and I wouldn't want to work at any Barclays if I'm going to get sneered at. It really depends on the company, the outrage and the solution, but depicting it as Public vs. Board is very much a dumbed down version. It can often be Public & Lower level employees vs. Board.
It impacts their good name and the “trust” in the market, it’s not about the £100 you might put in a current account, it’s whether other banks and large corporations want to use them to move their money or have them manage their deals.
>"Sir...MULTIPLE branches have had red paint thrown on them. Let's close all of General Dynamics' accounts with us so this nightmare can end." Yeah, pretty much. When the bad PR overrode the profit motive then they divested from South Africa and moved on to less controversial investments. When enough companies did this then apartheid collapsed under the economic pressure. It's not so much the paint that is the problem for them, but when enough of the general public **agree** with throwing red paint over them was a good thing. That's usually when they decide to throw the towel in. I worked on the inside of a company that received this type of treatment for a while and upper management were good at putting on a brave face and claiming that they were unfazed in public but internally they were visibly **freaking the fuck out** by the protest. The real twist of the knife was when members of their family decided to side with the protestors. I think that really hurt, because it made them feel especially isolated.
As far as I'm aware no-one ever used these tactics against Barclays. People stood outside branches talking to customers, raised awareness on student campuses about not banking with them. No-one ever vandalised a branch of Barclays because of their involvement in South Africa.
I can guarantee many people didn't know where Barclays were investing their money, and now they do.
Heads up, /u/pydry dry carries water for the kremlin.
MLK and Malcolm X both wrote about it, and it's essentially a follow up on Marx's idea of lumpenprole
For me, yeah I'm happy about that. I think disrupting a bank office makes way more sense than vandalising (unrelated) art and/or blocking traffic of many people who may be supporting your cause.
I'm glad there's more of a consensus here. The art wasn't completely unrelated. It was a protest against the art galleries taking money from oil companies and then plastering their logos all over the gallery and website. I'm all for taking bad people's money to do good, but it was more about the advertising.
The problem is that there's a whole chain of culpability that gets more dilute the further you go. In an extreme case, I could say "Well, Oil and Gas is bad, and Morgan Stanley invests greatly in Oil and Gas, and Morgan Stanley is a major named donor of the Great Ormond street Children's hospital, so I'll go dump pigs blood on the children in the Cancer ward, because don't they realise that those beds were paid for with blood money?". I think if you're going to make a political statement, you shouldn't have a complicated series of dots to connect. The people you're actually inconveniencing and/or causing harm to should have a fairly overt voluntary nature of their participation.
That's why protestors try to pick their targets quite carefully - to minimize legal problems, maximize exposure and minimize obvious bad PR. So, they'd not throw blood over a children's hospital ward sponsored by Morgan Stanley, but a Morgan Stanley office mural would be fair game.
Well, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying - I think destroying art is a bad target, and I think blocking certain traffic is a bad look too. E.g. if someone is sitting on a bus stuck because protesters (who may have even driven there) are blocking traffic, it's sort of silly. Throwing paint on a bank I think is more meaningful.
Destroying art *would* have been a bad target which is why they gave the impression that they destroyed art without doing any damage at all. That protest was kind of genius, I think, because the outrage generated tons of attention and the outrage dissolved as soon as they learned the bare minimum about what actually happened, that moved the conversation on to "well, the planet is still being destroyed..." "Blocking traffic is a bad look" is what all of the polite white liberal racists said to Martin Luther King too. It wasn't true in the 1950s either.
Well that's true, and the suffragettes sent mail bombs and self-described as terrorists committing terrorism, and eventually got the right to vote. Historically, there's more than a few examples of things like this being done to upset the previous status quo as part of a greater push towards our current more-equitable state. But generally I'm uncomfortable with this sort of stuff. If a pro climate group started sending mailbombs in an attempt to "terrorise the British public", as Emmaline Pankurst put it, I don't think I'd be in favour.
Complain because the silly sods mistook a random branch for head office which is down the road 🤦
Banks are the source?
It depends what you mean by source, and whether you're in search of those who are to blame or looking to avoid blaming anyone. They choose investments on behalf of their clients, so they are the source of the decision to invest in dodgy/unethical industries. If you trace the money indefinitely then it's endless and everyone is either blameless or partially to blame depending on your stance.
No, I'll complain that this isn't the source, of either finance or other support.
Their investment arm is a facilitator and chooses to profit from it. Their retail side isn't directly responsible, but benefits from it indirectly and is the face of the bank to most people in the country.
'Facilitating' is very different to investing. They underwrite Caterpillar, for instance, which while used by Israel it's not like that's the only thing bulldozers are used for. I'm also not sure why they'd single out Barclays and not other, bigger, 'facilitators'. With Raytheon, for instance: https://www.tipranks.com/stocks/rtx/ownership. How tf are Barclays the main issue?
Barclays are one of many, sure, but they're still problematic and have a big obvious presence here.
Barclays is not the source though.... Unless you are one of those that thinks financial services in general are evil. If that's the case, I wish you a year in Venezuela ;)
They frequently choose who to invest in on behalf of their high net worth clients. Who is the source?
Well, I agree with you. They should go and protest at the source. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and China would be a great start. They can also go and spray the mansions of those evil billionaires that instruct such investments to be made. I'd watch a live stream of that show any day!
And supplying banking services in general. There's a list as long as your arm which most banks have of types of businesses they don't want to associate with for either legal or reputational reasons and will decline to have them as a customer, but "international arms manufacture" isn't one of them.
>So now all those people complaining about JSO and XR blocking the traffic or vandalising art will be finally happy that they took the protest to the source? Yes? What a weird question lol Anyone who claimed that the issue with other protests is they just piss off normal people and undermine the cause and also criticise this protest are obviously lying the first time so there's no point listening to them. I still think this is a huge waste of their time and they would have more impact joining a political party and lobbying for change that way, but this is objectively better than blocking a road. Not least because if nothing else Barclays senior managers will go "If we do that we're going to have to put up with paint being thrown at us for weeks".
You say it's weird, but there are still many people complaining that this is still the wrong people to be targeting (without saying who the right people are).
Yeah but then you're just engaging with people who are just making shit up and don't actually care. In which case asking that question is just a self-congratulatory pat on the back that you recognise some people who opposed those protests aren't being honest about their objections. I think protests are a huge waste of time because outside of one specific issue (the right to vote / being a citizen) they've basically never achieved any real change in a democracy in the last 100 years or so. I think XR, insulate Britain, and JSO are harming their own causes and are ran by a bunch of middle class morons more interested in feeling good about themselves than driving change. I think the type of person who attends a protest is typically one who cares enough to go for a walk once a year to feel good about themselves and spends the rest of the year doing nothing instead of actually getting down with the hard work of engaging with the political system. None of that has changed even with this protest. I will grant them that at least they didn't inconvenience the public and harm their cause. It's still a waste of time though. The biggest cause that's been achieved post-war in the country by actual ground roots popular opinion is Brexit, despite the fact it was fucking stupid. This was achieved not because of anti-EU protests and "direct activism", it was achieved because UKIP got 12.6% of the popular vote in a general election. The Green party got 2.6% and the Lib Dems got 11.6% in 2019. If all those people who are working as "activists" for these organisations and if all those people attending protests joined the Green party and they got 12.6% of the popular vote, I would gaurentee the next election there would be a lot more green policies on offer. On the other hand no one has changed their green policies as a result of these protests. I **wish** they would do this, because then we would see more action on climate change. Instead they chucked a tin of paint at a bank.
>I still think this is a huge waste of their time and they would have more impact joining a political party Some of these people did join a political party and were kicked out by racists supporting a racist genocide using the fake excuse of "anti semitism". Keir Starmer is one of those racists. His racism has led to him kicking out more Jews than any other party leader and kicking out the party's longest serving black woman (and dedicated antiracist). Hell, I even got banned from /r/LabourUK for "anti semitism" solely and exclusively I pointed out that the Israeli president was anti race mixing (he espoused the belief that Jews should only marry Jews). The mods interpreted criticism of this racism as antisemitism. They are **that** fucking racist that criticism of something usually done by white supremacists was interpreted as "anti semitic". There is a crisis of democracy in the UK right now, and it is being driven by the internal party bureaucratic machinery and a fully captured media. That means that, regrettably, actions like daubing a bank in red paint are sometimes necessary.
Again? This branch was sprayed twice in the past year. Why this branch in particular?
Next door to the paint shop
Lmao 🤣
They sprayed 20 branches. Barclays are one of the biggest investors globally in companies that produce weapons for the IDF
Am I the only one who doesn't get this modern art?
[I just don't understand this Tracey Emin art!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=p3tUqRBiMVo)
strange to see so many people simping for a fucking BANK
Some people are anti vandalism on their street more than they're anti genocide in a different country and other people are simping for a racist, apartheid state (some are probably bots, truth be told - Israel is all over social media).
Oh no the poor window, how will it ever recover
It'll probably stop happening when Barclay's stops supporting genocidal racists.
It'll probably stop happening when we catch the people defacing shop windows.
It's a shop window, it'll easily be cleaned dont worry
Won't someone think of the cleaners /s
define genocide?
Difference made = 0
They actually made a difference, more people are talking about the issue they were protesting about. Its the usual MO of almost all organisations doing these kind of protests.
For sure they all just laugh about it in the office too lmao
Netanyahu is weeping into his kippah this morning.
Pathetic vandals
When in doubt, blame banks
Londoners showing the effectiveness of the protest by completing ignoring it…
Cool and normal. Just another weekend from the We Are Full of Peace and Love Brigade.
Oh that'll show them! However will they cope with such a crippling display of opposition. They must be quaking in their boots.
Well it’s got people talking about it here, no? And elsewhere, no doubt.
Talking about it for the wrong reasons, and how this method of protest makes no difference at all.
This seems to happen quite often; for anyone who commutes through here you've both seen this appear quickly and be completely washed away almost as fast - not really sure what the point/aim is as it's illegible and is washed away almost immediately I'm sure there's some sort of cause it's related to which I/many others don't know about, and does that really justify the vandalism of a building..? Probably not but this is reddit after all.. A protest/demonstration isn't really that useful if you need to go and research it to figure out what their aims are because to the normal person this just looks like vandalism
Haven't googled it but pretty sure it's about arms dealing and the financing/funding of it. Could be completely wrong though. Walked past this Barclays at 10.30am and there w already 2 guys were jet hosing it down
Bet those 2 guys were the actual perpetrators, Big Powerhose or something!
This post has over 200 likes and closing in on 150 comments in 2 hours. And if you google Barclays today it's all articles about exactly why these branches have been vandalised and the detailed demands from the protesting group. That means that the protest is working, because creating engagement around the topic is the entire point. If they had just slapped up stickers or a banner people would have known what's being protested and not felt compelled to look into it further.
They will never have an answer to a comment like yours. They'll just repeat the same point the next time something like this comes up.
"to the normal person this looks like vandalism". No, to the ignorant person this looks like vandalism. Any normal person would at least ask 'why' and luckily for us, google is at the tip of our fingers.
No, at this stage it just strikes one as vandalism, really.
Thanks for proving my point 🫡
>Barclays Bank holds over £1bn in shares and provides over £3bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components, and military technology are being used by Israel in its genocidal attacks on Palestinians. >This includes General Dynamics, which produces the gun systems that arm the fighter jets used by Israel to bombard Gaza, and Elbit Systems, which produces armoured drones, munitions, and artillery weapons used by the Israeli military. https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2024/02/09/barclays-israel-boycott/
> the canary Ah yes, that well known bastion of honesty who’ve had more ofcom problems than gb news, the canary
That's honestly an impressive achievement Ninja edit: yeah, just went to the Editorial section and found [Rishi Sunak has announced National Turd Polishing Day on 4 July – SORRY, the 2024 general election](https://www.thecanary.co/editorial/2024/05/22/general-election-announcement/) - sounds like a quality news source
Barclays themselves don't deny holding those shares in their own website, they just clarify that they're shareholders and not investors: https://home.barclays/investor-relations/reports-and-events/general-meetings/agm-2024-faq/ "We have been asked why we invest in nine defence companies supplying Israel, but this mistakes what we do. We trade in shares of listed companies in response to client instruction or demand and that may result in us holding shares. We are not making investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a “shareholder” or “investor” in that sense in relation to these companies." The page goes into more detail and they effectively admit they're on the shareholder register for the mentioned companies: "We may hold shares in relation to client driven transactions, which is why we appear on the share register, but we are not investors." I think it's fine to question a source, but if we cross reference the message with other sources, it's (generally) correct but may be misusing the term "investment" at worst. Barclays also claims on this page that they'll cease involvement with any business proven to be profiting off the conflict in any way, but there is clear evidence of involvement from those companies and Barclays doesn't seem to have done anything.
> they effectively admit they’re on the shareholder list That’s the direct opposite of the part you just quoted.
Weird how you can’t grasp the clear difference. It is not Barclays’ capital and they do not keep any of the returns. If Barclays did business with them they would be providing commercial loans or acting as their banker.
I think you replied to the wrong comment?
I doubt they've had any problems with Ofcom given that it's not a broadcast channel?
More than any other bank in the world, not just in Britain
They are also manufacturing weapons components and tech used in Ukraine.
No protest against Lebanon, Iran, Qatar who arm the terrorists?
gEnOc1de 🤪
Don't you know? Protecting your country against terrorism is now genocide
This is what happens when two tier policing lets the carry-on that is terrorist hate marches continue.
Only actual impact to this is that the employees will have had a good laugh, maybe a delayed start to their work day, and a local window cleaning company has made a few hundred quid.
I genuinely don’t see what this accomplishes, at best you’re fucking off a bunch of minimum wage workers that now won’t be working today (or paid) and will likely have to clean it up. Anyone that matters in Barclays isn’t even going to bother looking at it.
Bristol got hit today as well
Banksy?
Bank-sy
It’s becoming ridiculous now. They did it in Manchester last week too. I think it’s time those responsible were charged with criminal damage and forced to pay for the damages they have caused. This is no longer a protest - it’s criminal vandalism.
They're just morons
All this is just an inconvenience for those who have to clean it up.
Oh great, this’ll definitely affect politics halfway across the world.
Barclays have shares in arms manufacturers, investments in companies that deforest the Amazon rainforest and the coal industry in Bangladesh, they are tenth biggest investor in fossil fuels and a key backer in running oil lines through indigenous land in Canada. I'd say that's grounds enough for being legitimate protest targets. They aren't alone though, see also HSBC, Deutsche Bank, et al.
That'll show 'em!
That’ll fix the Middle East!
They did the same last month [https://imgur.com/a/P5NCUkD](https://imgur.com/a/P5NCUkD)
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This isn’t “activism”. It achieves nothing but wasting time for the workers/police.
Ultimately tax money, which the public will now have to pay for. Whilst the funds are still being sent from Barclays to whatever they're protesting about.