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Initially introduced and hailed as means of offering more democratic and facilitative policing, but increasingly subject to question by protestors, Police Liaison Teams (PLTs) are one of the primary tactical options used by Public Order Police in the UK. This paper will analyse the deployment of PLTs over the 14 days of the global COP26 summit in Glasgow in 2021. The police plan for the event emphasised Human Rights, dialogue and facilitation, but some protest groups accused PLTs of ‘intelligence-gathering’ and urged activists not to speak to them. This paper draws on participant observation and interviews with both police and protestors to analyse the deployment of PLTs at the summit and consider why some groups chose not to engage with the liaison officers. Responding to calls for more evidence-based analyses of PLT deployment, we highlight the difficulties of police-protestor liaison at a Global Summit and outline why protest groups might choose not to engage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In advance of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) summit in Glasgow in 2021, Police Scotland insisted that human rights and facilitation would be central to their operation. When the event passed off peacefully, without any of the mass arrests and disorder seen at previous iterations of COP, the Police declared it a huge success. We draw on research with activists and officers to scrutinize this claim and analyse the policing of COP26. Literature on protest policing suggests that global summits are distinctive, because the interplay between the security of Heads of state and other dignitaries, the local community and protestors is heavily biased in favour of security at such events. We suggest that this remains the case, despite the police emphasis on facilitation. We conclude that the ‘human-rights-based approach’ to policing is poorly defined and unevenly implemented and means different things to police and protestors. A fundamental rethinking of existing approaches and priorities is required for it to be meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COP26 Climate Summit held in Glasgow in November 2021 was expected to attract mass protests. Given the climate crisis and the increase in direct action in the UK, the police anticipated huge numbers with the potential for significant disorder. Despite this, Police Scotland insisted that they were committed to facilitating peaceful protest. Drawing on ethnographic observation and interviews with both police and protestors, this paper offers analysis of a contentious event during the large set-piece demonstration on Saturday 6 November. It focuses on the containment of a small group of Young Communists to ask what this tells us about ‘facilitation’, crowd theory, and police-protestor relations. Whilst fairly insignificant in terms of numbers, we argue that the YCL containment offers valuable insights into protest policing and facilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]