Keir Starmer, McDonald's, and Home Ecology

I have a soft spot for the new British prime minister

Messrs Barlow Lyde and Gilbert to Arlington Books Limited, London, 15 March 1990:

We are instructed by McDonald's Corporation of Oak Brook, Illinois, U.S.A., who run the McDonalds Restaurant chain in the U.S.A. and elsewhere in the world, and by McDonald's Restaurants Ltd., the company which operates the restaurants situated in the United Kingdom.

Our attention has been drawn to the following passage on pages 45 to 46 of "Home Ecology" by Karen Christensen: "Why do people to go McDonalds? They want something NOW, are in a hurry and don't want to spend much. Yet fast food restaurants contribute to the destruction of tropical rain forests (destroy forever in order to raise beef for a couple of seasons, until the soil is utterly depleted), contribute huge amounts of plastic and paper waste to the "disposal stream" and our streets, and give us proverbially unhealthy food to boot. International hamburger chains also tend to homogenise cultures (why on earth should we be able to eat the same American hamburger and french fries in Tokyo and Peking and Paris?)"

Our clients would naturally not agree with the sentiments expressed in this paragraph, and have instructed us to write to you in connection with the specific allegation that they contribute to the destruction of tropical rain forests in the manner described. This is in fact a gross defamation of our clients whose support for the conservation of wildlife and natural resources round the World is a major part of their business philosophy. We can do no better than to enclose a copy of our clients' corporate policy statement which confirms that they have never purchased meat from cattle reared in former rain forest areas anywhere in the world. This policy is and has been closely monitored and rigorously enforced. This defamatory allegation has been made on television, in the newspapers, and in books and apologies have been received from, for example, the BBC, the Independent and the Sunday Correspondence. HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, in his capacity as President of the World Wildlife Fund, acknowledged as long ago as 1984 that McDonald's was innocent of any involvement in tropical deforestation.

This allegation also appeared in the best selling Green Consumer Guide by John Elkington and Julia Hailes whose reputation as leading environmentalists is of course well known. The first edition of the Green Consumer Guide contained a similar defamatory allegation and, having had the true facts drawn to their attention, they have now revised the book and recognised that the association of our clients with the despoliation of tropical rain forests is totally erroneous. Further, Professor Ghillean Prance, Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and another leading expert on tropical rain forests, has written to our clients acknowledging that from all his experience and investigation into rain forests he recognises that our clients do not and have not permitted the destruction of the tropical rain forests for their beef supply anywhere in the world.

We have advised McDonalds that this allegation is defamatory in that they have a right to claim damages against your company and against Karen Christensen. However, our clients are prepared not to pursue their undoubted right to damages provided that we hear from you within seven days of the date of this letter as follows:

1. That "Home Ecology" will be immediately withdrawn from sale;

2. That the offending passage as referred to above will be revised to our clients' satisfaction before the book is put back on sale;

3. That your company should join with Karen Christensen in making a statement in Open Court in a form approved by our clients, acknowledging that the defamatory allegation complained of is misconceived, apologising unreservedly to our clients and undertaking not to repeat it in the future either in the U.K. or anywhere in the world;

4. That our clients' legal costs will be paid on an indemnity basis. Pending resolution of this matter to our clients satisfaction their rights remain, of course, strictly reserved.

Accompanying this letter is a letter addressed to Karen Christensen. Could you please bring it to her attention immediately. A copy of this letter has been sent to all major booksellers in the U.K.

Keir Starmer, now the prime minister, was a probono legal advisor to the McLibel defendants.

Arlington Books to Messrs Barlow Lyde and Gilbert, 26 March 26,1990

Further to your letter of 15th March concerning the reference to McDonalds on page 45 of Home Ecology, we wish to point out that the book does not contain a 'specific allegation that they [McDonalds] contribute to the destruction of tropical rain forests' as is asserted in paragraph 4 of your letter. We note the enclosed 'Corporate Policy Statement' which is undated, unsigned and unattributed. However, we have not desire to place ourselves in the position of a David to your client's Goliath and, in the interests of goodwill, and to settle the matter amiably we make the following response to the demands you make:

We have suspended distribution of Home Ecology.

We consider the most practical thing would be to delete your client's name from page 45 but would be interested to see your proposed re-wording of the paragraph in question.

As we have already said, we do not accept that the *sentence* in question is defamatory, or the rest of the paragraph, and we do not intend to make a statement in open court acknowledging it to be so. None-the-less, we regard the matter of re-wording as open to further discussion. Our author, Karen Christensen, associates herself with us in these proposals.

It was terrifying, and infuriating. I wanted to fight, but I was a 32-year-old author with two small children, newly separated from their father, and not in a position to do anything but give way. It was, in fact, my publisher’s decision. Arlington simply replaced the offensive page, doing nothing more than change the word “McDonald's” to “fast food restaurant.”¹

We did not hear from the lawyers again – no further demand for a public apology. The real damage was done by the letters sent to every UK bookstore chain, threatening them with being accessories to the defamation. The bookstores promptly defended free speech by returning every copy of Home Ecology (and other threatened books). My book never recovered; my income disappeared.

I was mortified when I realized that in a way it was all my fault. Home Ecology had been a surprise bestseller the year before, chosen one of Britain’s Top 20 Green Books in a national promotion sponsored by The Observer. But before that happened, I had had to do everything to get the book finished: paying for illustrations out of my miniscule advance, doing the proofreading and then the indexing. I was the one who had included the word “McDonald’s” in the index! A professional indexer would have left it out because I was simply using the name as a general reference to fast food.

The Times, London, 20 April 1990

A bigger beef: As book shops all over Britain mark Green Book Fortnight,² where is Britain's best known green, Jonathon Porritt, in this high- profile promotion? The answer is nowhere.

The definitive environmental manifesto, The Coming of the Greens, by the director of Friends of the Earth has aroused the wrath of the fast-food chain McDonalds. Porritt is critical of their employment policies, which has led the Big Mac people to fire off solicitors' letters. Another victim is Karen Christensen, whose Home Ecology also impugns the company's green credentials. A McDonald's 'corporate policy statement' affirms the company's concern for all things environmental. Publishers have had no choice but to suspend distribution."

“We like to imagine that we all have free speech, but that simply isn’t the situation.” —Keir Starmer QC

The McLibel Case

All this happened in the early period of McDonald’s assault on free speech in the UK, and several years before the trial that became known as McLibel, began. The McLibel case was, at the time, the longest and most expensive legal action in UK history.

Libel laws, ironically enough, in our litigious United States provide much more protection to writers, thanks to the First Amendment to the US Constitution. (We’ll see if that holds, of course, after the election in November.)

In Britain, the burden of proof was with the defendant.³ McDonald’s reckoned that no one could afford a fight with them. And they were right, until they went after a pair of activists who had no assets to protect and who were willing to devote years to the case. Helen Steel and David Morris represented themselves in court, but Keir Starmer, then a human rights lawyer with the well-known Doughty Street Chambers, provided them with free legal support. He went on to other things, as you know, but I’d like to think this shows that he is serious about doing the right thing, and getting the job done. If only we had more politicians in the US who inspired confidence! (In fact, we have some great people. They are simply not placed where they ought to be.)

You can watch the whole McLibel documentary on YouTube, with a young Keir Starmer.

“Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.” –Jack Reacher

I am feeling quite down on the US just now, even though McLibel reminds me that we have some good ideas on this side of the pond. It’s a relief that my son and daughter have UK passports. But I don’t. I came back to the States because I wanted to live in the country where I voted, and I couldn’t bring myself to take British citizenship as T S Eliot did. I’m kicking myself now, because maybe I could have had dual citizenship. Looking at the mess we’re in, I wonder if I should revive the forum we called LoveUSHateUS.com? It was very active for a while, during the George W. Bush presidency.

British politicians have to show that they can not only drink beer but pull a pint (a tricky business). Even today, pubs are vital and we need an equivalent here in the US. Here’s Keir Starmer talking about how good he’s become at pulling pints. It’ll soon be time to talk to the Labour Government about support for pubs like the one we visited, virtually, last week.

1. Now, as a publisher myself, I wonder about the cost of replacing a single page in hundreds or thousands of finished books, and wonder if I was charged for it (that would be legal, under the terms of any standard author contract). The revised books were never taken up again in a big way by the chains, so it was money wasted.

2. This was the second Green Book Fortnight and this time I was one of the judges. More about its beginnings here. Ruth Rendell was one of the patrons, as well as other well-known literary figures.

3. In 2013, the UK Parliament passed the Defamation Act, in part to stop “libel tourism” (non-UK companies and individuals who would file lawsuits in the UK to take advantage of what I, of course, think were outrageous requirements for defense). It also required claimants to show actual or probable serious harm. In the case of McDonald’s, they would now have to prove substantial financial loss as a result of my use of “McDonald’s” or when Green Party vegans spend a Saturday morning passing out leaflets.