![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
What I Have in Common with Sir Keir Starmer
Back on Friday, July 5, the Washington Post printed an article about the UK’s new Prime Minister, including the paragraph, “Starmer also worked pro bono for a pair of vegan anarchists who passed out leaflets accusing McDonalds of low wages, cruelty to animals and support of deforestation. The burger maker sued for libel, and the case and its many appeals lasted a decade, one of the longest legal fights in British history. It ended in a kind of draw.”
I remember the McLibel trial, as it was called. If I recall correctly, I chipped in a few dollars to assist the defendants, and I definitely remember writing an article about the case for the local vegetarian society in central Pennsylvania. A couple of middle class people who had homes to lose knuckled under and apologized to McDonalds, but the remaining leaflet distributors, who were poor to begin with, did not. The judge moved the goalposts, and required that the defendants prove the truth, not only of the allegations that were actually in the leaflets, but of other derogatory statements that were not. In consequence, McDonalds was able to “win” against people who were judgement proof, but earned a lot of bad publicity from the evidence introduced.
Kudos to Mr Keir Starmer (not yet knighted) for providing pro bono legal services to the targets of a bullying corporation.
I remember the McLibel trial, as it was called. If I recall correctly, I chipped in a few dollars to assist the defendants, and I definitely remember writing an article about the case for the local vegetarian society in central Pennsylvania. A couple of middle class people who had homes to lose knuckled under and apologized to McDonalds, but the remaining leaflet distributors, who were poor to begin with, did not. The judge moved the goalposts, and required that the defendants prove the truth, not only of the allegations that were actually in the leaflets, but of other derogatory statements that were not. In consequence, McDonalds was able to “win” against people who were judgement proof, but earned a lot of bad publicity from the evidence introduced.
Kudos to Mr Keir Starmer (not yet knighted) for providing pro bono legal services to the targets of a bullying corporation.