Quaker climate activist wins appeal against deportation with support from Chris Packham and many others

Silent worship outside court where Quaker climate activist faced deportation hearing. 10/11/25. Image: Michael Preston for Quaker in Britain

Source: Quakers in Britain

Quaker climate activist Marcus Decker will not be deported, a judge ruled at his immigration tribunal on Monday, 10 November. Decker had faced deportation thanks to his witness against fossil fuels but defence barristers from Matrix Chambers emphasized that he acted upon his conscience.

They said he was a model citizen with a strong moral compass and that it was only a matter of time before climate defenders are seen in the same way as suffragettes and anti-apartheid campaigners.

Naturalist and TV presenter Chris Packham joined a silent Quaker meeting for worship outside the deportation hearing in Islington.

The judge said that it would take her two weeks to draw up legal explanations but that he had won his appeal. The Home Office is likely to appeal this decision.

Decker, 36, of Tottenham Quaker Meeting, was sentenced to more than two years in prison after scaling the Dartford Crossing in 2022 as part of a Just Stop Oil (JSO) protest.

With others, Decker climbed 200 feet up the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, unfurling a giant JSO banner and causing widespread disruption.

The Home Office served Decker, who has a partner and two stepchildren in the UK, with a deportation order to his native Germany while he was in prison.

Deportation orders are made when a person's presence is not thought beneficial to the public good, especially if they've received a custodial sentence of a year or more.

At the time, the sentences given to Decker and co-defendant Morgan Trowland were the longest handed down for nonviolent protest in this country in modern times.

Quakers in Britain has repeatedly raised concerns around the repression of dissent and the rights of individuals to bear witness to injustice.

Quakers in Britain Recording Clerk Paul Parker said: "We are facing an existential threat thanks to the climate crisis. Marcus Decker served a draconian prison sentence for bearing witness to that threat.

"That that sentence was used to suggest that his presence in our country is not conducive to the public good, when he is demonstrably a credit to humanity, sets a dangerous precedent.

"We welcome this ruling, but urge the government to reconsider the increasingly repressive laws against protest."

Decker is embedded in UK communities ranging from Tottenham Quaker Meeting to actors and musicians across London and beyond.

A petition set up by his partner Holly Cullen-Davies has attracted 176,000 signatures. In it she said: "This double punishment is devastating for us."

Her campaign has received backing from 600 public figures including George Monbiot and Olivia Colman.

In a letter the celebrities noted that the extreme weather which regularly closes the Dartford Crossing will only become more frequent thanks to climate change.

In prison Decker set up a choir with the help of a guitar sent in by folk legend Peggy Seeger. More recently audiences at the Cockpit Theatre enjoyed a musical of his life narrated by Juliet Stevenson.