Axe Drax Action Guide

So, you want to take action against Drax, but not sure where to start? Read this guide!
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A distributed action strategy

Drax is a large, international company that required a network of supporting companies to keep it going. Both Drax and these secondary targets are spread around wide, with offices and key logistical points across Britain and beyond.
We want to have big impact, with limited resources, and local action. This means our action has to be focused on a few secondary targets, with the primary target as Drax.
We focus on just one or two secondary targets, with a clear ask for them to cut ties with Drax. Targets are picked based on if they are movable and relevant. So we target the lobbyist and crisis management firms that Drax has contracts with, causing a crisis for them in the process and ruining their reputation with other clients.

Taking Action, as easy as 1, 2, 3 (and 4, and 5 too)

1. Form your group

Your need to form a group of some sort to start taking action as part of Axe Drax locally. To start with, think of the two or three people close to your that hate Drax too and would be up for getting up to some mischief with you. You can pull more people in later when you have got a bit more of a plan.

2. Pick your target

Check out the Axe Drax target map to find a target in your area: targets.axedrax.org
Pick an office, building, or other location to target with your protest. There are a few things to consider with your target:
  • How can I get to it? Is it nearby, or in my town or city?
  • How visible is it? Are there good visuals to make a connection with Drax or the secondary target on the outside?
  • Is it still active?

2.1 Recce your target

Take a (discrete) visit to your target to check it is still active in the place you expect. Don’t just trust the map, you need to have the most up to date knowledge of how your target operates. The only way you do this is by taking a visit.
This guide walks you through how to recce and best practices.
Important to not forget:
  • How would you get in?
  • How would you get out?
  • Where could you meet discretely before hand?
  • Is the company/target actually there?
  • Who else shares the building? Maybe don’t block it if there is a play group on the ground floor.

3. Design your action

Now for the fun bit, and where it is good to get creative. This comes in a few stages:

3.1 Define the action purpose & limits

What are you trying to achieve with this action? Media attention? Shutting them down for the day? Reaching out to the public outside?
What are your limits to action you take? Do you want to avoid legal risk? Are you restricted on what times you can do? Do you have limited resources?

3.2 Brainstorm ideas

Come up with some wacky ideas, anything goes here! Chat through with your group each idea, challenge them and develop of them. Some great (and some terrible) ideas will come out of this, make sure to keep a note of the good ones for future actions.

3.3 Cut out bad or too complex actions

Remove the actions that don’t match with your action purpose and limitations. Then with the remaining actions, pick one to go with for now and start planning.
See the Appendix 1 on a few example actions with some details to get you started.

4. Plan your action

Now there’s lots to do to make sure you are prepared to take action.
Set your date for action, then plan in your prep the tasks you need to do before them. Make sure your tasks are pretty evenly distributed between each person.
A good action could take around three to four weeks to prep, but some simple actions could be done tonight with you and your friends!
Here is a breakdown of the areas you should think about:

4.1 Logistics

Here is a checklist of things you almost always need to sort:
  1. Complete initial recce – see guide here
  2. Banner – see guide here
    1. Schedule banner making & find large enough space
    2. Get banner material
    3. Paint Banner
  3. Source other materials
    1. Do you need a lock on? Do you need ladders? How about some glue?
    2. Better to do this early to avoid last min rushing
4.2 Recruitment & roles 
Each person needs to know what to do, here are some core tasks needed
  1. Schedule a time for briefing everyone
  2. Recruit a back office – this is someone who doesn’t attend the action but sits on a laptop or phone with good internet to manage media outputs and support for action takers.
  3. Recruit action takers – enough people for what you plan to do!
  4. Run a briefing call, with the aim to make sure everyone coming out of it knows what they are doing on the day
  5. Create a back office chat for getting info and footage from the ground
It can also be helpful to create a written briefing document, so all action participants can see the action info in one place, see example briefing here. 

There is always a drop off in the number of people recruited vs who can actually take action. Recruit for more than you need, for small actions that might mean double (6 rather than 3) the number you need.

4.3 Communications

We need to let everyone know that you have taken action, and to do that you need to do some planning in advance. If you are going to have a banner, write speeches or even put out your own social media content then you need some form of comms plan. This isn’t too scary, and simper than you think. In short, it is a simple document with your three key points about why you are taking action which you can use as the basis of writing or speaking about your actions.
Make sure your banner message clearly ties to your three messages so someone could quickly work out what you are talking about. Don’t make it too long, and follow the style guide for Axe Drax, so the colours and logos show a cohesive movement.

Axe Drax’s comms team is up for supporting getting your action out. Drop us an email via a proton mail email address to info@axedrax.uk and we can see what we can do to send out a press release or put content on social media. This is the best way to get stuff out as the comms team have media connections and can easily send out press releases and put social media posts out.

Feel free to send us Instagram co-post requests, we will accept them if they align with our core message and don’t clash with other important comms. Best bet is to email securely in advance so we can plan and not miss getting your action to get the biggest reach, or ask to contact us on signal or simplex before sharing details.

You don’t need to make a big comms plan, you can just give us heads up and we will push your action out as far as we can.

4.4 Legal

All actions come with legal risk, even something you might consider quite mundane! You should think through what the legal risks are, and make sure that everyone taking action is aware of the risk and willing to take action still.

If you think you are likely to face arrest at your action, then

  1. Consult this legal briefing and check the appropriate laws.
  2. Print off bust cards from the Green and Black Cross website.

5. Take action

Everything should be in place, take action, stay calm when things go wrong!
If things go really wrong, plan in some kind of “kill switch” to stop you going ahead with an action when it is obviously doomed. It is better to call an action off if everyone thinks it is not going to work.

Appendices

Example Actions

Flyposting

This is very simple, you just need a load of posters and some flour to make wheat paste. You can even use wallpaper paste if you want it to be more waterproof and lower effort.
You can order your posters on this form: https://axedrax.uk/resources

Bus stop hacks

This is a great first action. All it takes is two people and the right tools. You can go about in the day in high vis clothing, removing adverts from public bus stops and either replacing them with ones you order online, or just painting on the back of the ones you take out.

Get Petty

Think about easy, low stress ways you can cause mischief to your target. Unplug that computer, turn that clock upside down, change all the labels on the draws in your office occupation.
Little things, small annoyances can build up and put pressure on your target. Continued small level action, a war of attrition on our secondary targets in particular (the ones we are asking to cut ties with Drax) are more effective than one big spectacular action.

Banner Drops

This is fun and low risk. Get a crew together to make a big banner, and plan a great location to drop your banner. This could be a significant cultural location to generate media attention, or at your target to put pressure on directly. Like with all actions, make sure you know what your aim is and this meets it.
Great benefit of this is organising a banner making session with your crew is a great way to bond over some crafts! And if you can make the banner pink then you are winning.

Blockade

The bread and butter (or marge) of direct action. Get some people together to block the entrance to a site. This could be a swarm, where enough people spend a few hours at a key time blocking vehicles (e.g. when they open in the morning) that all employees are sent up. You can often get away with waiting until the police threaten arrest, then leaving at that point as a low risk tactic. This way you can go back week after week!
Event disruption 
A low risk high impact form of action. Get in the way of the political operation of our targets, especially Drax itself.
Do some research on the targets in your area, and keep an eye out for events on public posts and event platforms. If you see a speaker from Drax or associated company (or a key politician) find a creative way to get into the event and as soon as they start to speak disrupt their special moment. Hang a banner, storm the stage, or simply shout over them in from of the camera.
For this action, it is crucial you get good footage of the action. See the comms section above in action planning, we can help you get it as wide as possible!

Noise demos

Sometimes you can disrupt your target without getting physically in their way. If the target has thin windows and you can get close, then causing as much noise to disturb their operation can be a great tactic.
This is especially good if you know they are having an important meeting (that you know no possible good comes from).

Glue in the locks

Make sure you are subtle with this one. With appropriate clothing and a hidden face, put super glue in the locks of the building of your target while there is no one in the building (very early in the morning).
This makes it a pain for them to open the office. You could shut down the building for a day without much risk to yourself!

Train

Occasionally, folks up for very high risk action have blocked the trains heading to Drax Power Station. This is how they get their pellets into the power station, and having the train blocked is a massive headache.
In 2021, in two separate actions, two women stopped the Drax train heading to the power station. In the first case, the activist flagged down the train and climbed on top for 8 hours.
WARNING: This is very risky, and has potentially high prison sentences. Do not interfere with train tracks unless you have been through extensive preparation, and are willing to face potentially high consequences.

Media Stunt

Sometimes a well thought through stunt can send ripples across the mainstream media. Check out one of our favourites, this action with one thousand “bad apples” in front of the the Met Police HQ.

Security Practices

We could write a whole manual on this, and there are plenty out of there, so here are some key things to think about when it comes to digital security when planning actions. As you can see, actions have massive range in risk, but it is worth implementing the same logic for different actions.

Need to know

This is the most import, and bigger than any of the tech tweaks or other practices. People who are not going to be part of your action don’t need to know about it. That means you don’t brag about it after a few pints, you don’t tell your whole street or shout it proudly at your work.
This might sound silly, but it can be easy to get chatting to anyone about this stuff, and it can make some of the other points below useless.

Your devices

Not to be dramatic, but our devices are a major vulnerability from outside actors like the police or big corporations. Core features of most phones include a huge amount of data gathering for large companies like Meta to target adverts at us and bring terrifyingly accurate images of our social circle.
Your phone and laptop can be used as listening devices, and have been, when you use platforms and software that make that easy or built in.
If you can, plan your action without needing to use your devices. This is very hard in the modern world, so take these steps to keep your friends much safer.
  1. Use Signal or Simplex for communication
    1. Both Signal and Simplex are end to end encrypted messaging apps. This means that when you send someone a message over either platform, from the moment it leaves your devices to the moment it arrives at the other person’s device the message cannot be read by someone (or some org) snooping in between. So “fuck drax” would become “9d*r~@:043” or something like that.
    2. However, if someone were to get your phone they could well read all the messages you have sent and received. So you need to take a few steps to reduce this risk
      1. Turn on “disappearing messages” on your chats
      2. If you have an Android phone, use the app “Molly” in place of Signal with a password to protect your messages on your phone. This means they are encrypted “at rest” as well as when they are being sent.
      3. Keep key details (like crypt pad links) out of signal chat descriptions
      4. Delete signal from your phone if you think you are at risk for someone snooping on your phone
      5. Keep to the first principle of need to know, no point using signal if you message a chat with 999 people in!
    3. Use Simplex for higher risk actions for more anonymous connections
  2. Use a VPN, or virtual private network, to connect to the internet
    1. Either buy MullvadVPN (recommended) or use ProtonVPN for free.
    2. A VPN protects the information you are looking at on the internet from your internet service provider (ISP), so TalkTalk or PlusNet or O2 or whatever your wifi or mobile data is bought through
    3. A VPN also replaces your IP address so you can change your apparent location
  3. Use CryptPad for shared documents
    1. CryptPad is the standard tool for easy encrypted document sharing and editing. You can create a free account on cryptpad.fr
    2. Avoid sharing the link to too many groups
  4. Email – don’t do it!
    1. Email is like a digital postcode, the total opposite to Signal or Simplex messages. It is very easy for people to read the content of your emails
    2. Even proton mail, which is an encrypted email provider we recommend you use, does not encrypt the subject lines of your emails so a lot of the meta data (everything that is not the content of your email) can be read by a lot of people
    3. If you do need to email, for example for contact us, make sure it is a proton mail account and keep any sensitive details in the body of the email

Common Mistakes

  1. Doing too many things
    1. It is easy to want to do a big, spectacular action. And you totally should! But sometimes we bite off more than we can chew. You should reflect in your design and planning stages if what you have initially planned is taking up too much and time for limited extra award. Sometimes a simple action can go just as far as an action with five elements and three crews!
  2. Cold feet
    1. People always, always, drop out of actions. This might be getting nervous, having something come up or some other random reason. You can plan this in, think through what would happen if one or two people dropped out. You would probably be okay.
    2. Plan for half the people who initially expressed interest dropping out of the action.
  3. Media
    1. It is easy to forget about media, and this misses a great opportunity to get the message out
    2. Make sure you test your phones that you are going to use for photo and video of your action, and check the camera quality is decent
    3. Not getting your key messages into images – make sure there are banners in front of the photographers (especially hostile ones). Sometimes well placed t-shirts with clear messages are good for this. It is hard to lose a banner that is attached to you / you are wearing!
  4. Phone faff
    1. If you are setting up phones for media or on the ground for the action, there will always, always be phone faff.
    2. Setting up a phone with Lebara or LycaMobile in cash means faffing around with vouchers, setting up accounts, and if you have an old phone coming across various issues
    3. This is normal, and often very simple to deal with, but if you leave it until 1am the night before an action it will not feel simple at all.
    4. So plan to do this in advance!
  5. Forgetting bust cards
    1. It has happened to all of us, your turn up at an action and realise no one printed of bust cards. Panic! What if someone is arrested?
    2. Don’t worry, someone can find the GBC number and write it on your arm, and even if you don’t have a pen the main thing is people know what solicitors to ask for at the police station. If you all ask for the same one, and the back office person knows who that is that makes organising police station support much easier for them
  6. Timing
    1. Did you set a time for people to meet? Did you stress a million times that people need to be exactly on time for the action to work? Unless your crew is a polished level of organised, someone will be late. The more people, the worse the risk. Set your meeting time (with all the above reminders 15/20 mins ahead of when you need to meet.
    2. Make sure you pick a discrete meeting point for this to happen if you are going to be there for 20 mins.
  7. Indecision
    1. Plan in advance how you will make decisions on the action. Will you be able to talk to each other in once place? Do you need comms between different groups?
    2. If you don’t put a process in place, would it automatically rest on a couple of people? What would happen if they were arrested?
  8. Clothing
    1. Wear appropriate clothing for the situation.
    2. If you are trying to be discrete, then wear clothes that blend in. This probably isn’t covered head to toe in black with a face covering (black block) but could be “grey block” where you wear normal clothes that naturally cover most of your identifying features (e.g. a medical face mask & hat)
  9. Getting good footage – follow this check list
    1. Make sure you have a decent phone camera
    2. Clean the phone camera with a glasses cloth
    3. Keep the footage in one orientation (often helpful to have both landscape and portrait, but not in the same footage)
    4. Keep your hand away from the mic (check where this is before hand)
    5. Look at the phone screen, not the scene. Keep focused on what you are filming and this should keep your footage pretty steady.
    6. Move slowly, if you have to pan (ideally not) then do it unnaturally slowly. They ways our eyes dart around can be processed by our brain, but if the camera does this people will struggle to see what is going on
  10. People not following through
    1. We all have busy lives, and are doing this in our spare time. Sometimes people will say they will do things, then forget to do them or find them too hard and not communicate this.
    2. Check in with people, have a way to share accountability like a shared to-do list or CryptPad Kanban board.
    3. Offer support to new people, as new folks are more likely to not follow through
    4. Make sure each task is owned by a person, not a group or working group as a whole. Only people will move things forward!

What do I need to think about on back office?

Back office is a relatively simple role, and very safe. There are two types of back office, and they can be done by the same person:
  1. Media – turning information and content from the action into media output to gather as much attention as possible
  2. Police Station Support Coordination – if there are arrests, especially a few, it can be helpful to have someone that makes sure people are doing police station support shifts outside the police station to make sure people have support when then get out of custody.

Media

As we said above, you can just email us and we can sort media for you. But here is a simple checklist of what back office involves:
  1. Get the first images in. Copy them from the upload location to the folder to be shared with press. Label the photos to explain what is happening.
  2. Send out the press release. Send out a BCC’d email to key local and a few national contacts with your action details, and a link to the few photos you got in.
  3. Create social media content. You can do a lot of this in advance. From the uploaded footage create some content for social media. Exactly the best format for this might have changed by the time you read this guide, so do a bit of research and chat to someone who has done this stuff before
    1. Check in advance if people are okay with their facing being on social media. If people need their faces blurred then talk about this before the action is very hard to do at the time.
  4. Post on socials! Don’t rush this too much. You are the first person to know about your action and you control the narrative. There is no in harming in waiting a bit for better footage to come through from the ground
  5. Check in your press email for press replies.
  6. Create a copy and paste share message to send around local group chats. This can generate a bit of buzz around your action.

Police Station Support (PSS)

This is pretty simple, and luckily there is a guide to what police station support involves already from Green and Black Cross.

As coord, your job is to keep track of how many arrests happened (this is particularly useful if the action is over a few sites that can’t see each other). Then share around the request for support, create a temporary group chat or use existing ones and organised shifts of a few hours at a time for people to fill.

Don’t be afraid to ask people directly, be clear about what is needed, and if it is late you can keep messaging people. There is someone inside and they need support, people should understand and if they don’t they can get over themselves.

Remember, you can do Police Station Support Coordination from outside the cop shop! If you are struggling to find people and are nearby head down yourself as a back up.

Other Resources

 Beautiful Trouble for action ideas

Edit this guide!

Do you have an action design you want adding? Suggestions for additions? Please email us on info@axedrax.uk from a proton mail address and we can add things in.