McDonald’s restaurants offered the Metropolitan police cut-price burgers and free hot drinks during Extinction Rebellion protests – but senior officers warned staff not to “flaunt” it, documents show.
Franchises also granted liberal use of their toilets during the central London demonstrations. A police chief praised this in an internal email as a “convenient” deal that would “allow short breaks” for patrolling officers.
The correspondence, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, shows the Met said the restaurants offered its staff a discount on food at “about half price” during the October 2019 protests.
The force accepted a “very kind offer” of free teas and coffees, and accepted “exclusive” terms from individual franchises to use their premises after 11pm “whilst XR continues”.
The revelations come as Extinction Rebellion begins a four-day protest at parliament on Friday, calling on ministers to act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025 and an immediate end to all new fossil fuel licenses.
The emails show the drinks offer applied to six McDonald’s branches in central London. Two branches offered use of downstairs seating areas after 11pm, the emails show.
A missive from Ch Supt Helen Harper to Cmdr Karen Findlay says: “… the venue of these stores are convenient for the XR footprint and would allow short breaks hots [sic] drinks, toilets etc without officers needing to come back to the stations.”
Harper then told on-duty officers: “To try and offer you some additional support we have approached McDonald’s who have very kindly offered to provide officers free tea and coffees whilst XR continues … [I] have passed on my thanks to McDonald’s, please when you take advantage of their kind offer thank them accordingly too.”
But top brass at Britain’s biggest force said “no to the half price food”, with Findlay telling Harper it was a non-starter, and warned the tea and coffee offer was “not to be flaunted”. The free hot drinks were declared by the Met in its gifts and hospitality submission.
In the email, Findlay added: “… can you make sure the offer goes to staff regarding the following branches, which is not to be flaunted and make sure [REDACTED] knows so they do understand we are doing what we can to help them out there as now cold and wet! And tired!”
A gift and hospitality declaration seen by the Guardian shows an offer of “free Teas [sic] and coffees” was accepted by the force at six McDonald’s branches. The Met also accepted an offer of “restaurant areas for exclusive use of our officers after 2300 [11pm]” at the Strand and Leicester Square branches, according to the document.
The Met’s gifts and hospitality policy states: “All offers of gifts and hospitality (whether accepted or rejected) must be recorded in the gifts and hospitality register held locally.”
The decision to offer hot drinks to the Met, as well as the staff discount, lies solely with individual McDonald’s franchises and not the head office, the Guardian understands.
Extinction Rebellion’s autumn uprising in 2019 planned to bring maximum disruption to the capital to draw attention to the climate emergency. About 1,820 arrests were made from 6-18 October 2019.
The Met dropped more than 100 cases against protesters after a high court ruling found a London-wide ban on any assembly linked to the Extinction Rebellion autumn uprising to be unlawful.
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McDonald’s produces slightly more greenhouse gas emissions than Norway, according to a 2021 report. The fast-food chain serves between 1 and 2% of the world’s beef at its 38,000 stores. According to a 2021 study in Nature Food, beef is responsible for a quarter of all emissions produced by raising and growing food.
A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion said: “Polluting multinational corporations being in league with the authorities is nothing new. In fact, it is the reason why the government is not acting urgently on climate change and signing off new fossil fuel projects instead.
“It is also the reason why we are demanding citizens’ assemblies to break this deadlock of corporate capture. We encourage everyone who is concerned about climate breakdown and our broken democracy to join us this weekend to build pressure on the government to accept our demands.”
Kevin Blowe, a campaigns coordinator for the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol), said: “The Met obviously needed somewhere to feed and water its officers in 2019 before sending them back out on to the streets to unlawfully restrict people’s rights to freedom of assembly.
“Policing in Britain likes to pretend it is neutral but is always more comfortable taking sides with corporate interests. Campaigners successfully targeting climate-wrecking businesses are immediately seen as a threat that justifies intrusive surveillance.”
The Metropolitan police have been contacted for comment.
A McDonald’s spokesperson said: “In support of the communities where they operate, some of our restaurants offer support to emergency services on an ad hoc basis during large-scale events or emergencies in the area. It is not an official policy and is done at the discretion of the franchisee or restaurant team. We do, however, offer an official discount to NHS staff nationwide.”