Occupy London protesters keen to regain focus on the City and bankers

Campaigners seek to move spotlight from St Paul's to unaccountability and the anomalous Corporation of London

guardian.co.uk, Peter Walker, Monday 31 October 2011

Occupy London protesters outside St Paul's Cathedral in London. The
movement wants to bring the spotlight back on the bankers.
Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA

Less than an hour after the news that the Occupy London protest had, even indirectly, led to a second senior departure inside St Paul's Cathedral, and the activists were getting back to the matter in hand: targeting bankers, not clerics.

In another of the near-daily events at the camp intended as much for photographers and television crews as passers-by, a dozen or so protesters wearing tattered suits and white zombie makeup performed a clunkily choreographed mass dance routine to the tinny sound of Michael Jackson's Thriller, waving a huge, black banner saying: "Dancing on the grave of capitalism."

It is one of the many curiosities of a camp officially called Occupy the London Stock Exchange that it has ended up spending almost as much time debating leadership issues at the rarefied heights of the Church of England as it has its intended target, the injustices and inequalities of global finance and banking.

The activists hope that this will soon change. While the camp shares the general aims of many counterpart protests around the world, most famously on Wall Street in New York, by being based in the heart of the capital's financial district campaigners aim to focus also on the particular mysteries of the City, and the sometimes anomalous, anachronistic body which runs it, the Corporation of London.

An initial list of demands from the camp agreed last week focused heavily on reform within the City and the corporation.

"Every country has its own particular national focus. Here, it's clearly unaccountability, a lack of transparency, and that means the City," said Naomi Colvin, an Occupy campaigner who has spoken regularly to the press.

This is all the more the case given that the corporation is leading moves to evict the camp, serving formal legal notices on Monday that they should pack up their tents within 48 hours.

"We say bring it on," said Colvin. "We believe the Corporation of London is ripe for examination, and we hope to do just that."

As news emerged that the dean of St Paul's, the Right Rev Graeme Knowles, had stepped down, other activists said they were concerned the debate was becoming sidetracked.

"I am saddened we've got a situation where members of the church are resigning," said Joel Benjamin, 29. "It's not their responsibility – it's about the financial system, it's not about the Church of England."

The paradox is, of course, that however seemingly diversionary, the focus on church matters has ended up being a PR coup for the camp in some ways. While a smaller, spillover outpost in Finsbury Square, further east in the City, has been largely ignored in recent days, the seemingly never-ending dithering of cathedral officials – especially the much-criticised decision to close St Paul's for a week on never-fully-explained health and safety grounds – has kept the main camp continually in the news.

The decision to pitch 200 or so tents on a small triangle of paving slabs in the western shadow of the cathedral was apparently accidental. The camp, as befits its name, had initially targeted Paternoster Square, a modern business and retail development which contains the London Stock Exchange. As protesters gathered 17 days ago the privately-owned square was sealed off by police, funnelling them instead towards the adjoining cathedral.

But speaking privately, some camp members say the site had been informally discussed as a possible end point for two reasons. Firstly, its joint ownership by St Paul's and the Corporation of London promised a legal minefield for eviction court cases. Additionally, the cathedral draws big crowds of visitors.

Whatever the intention, the location of the camp has drawn the Church of England into the debate, ever since the now-departed canon chancellor of St Paul's, the RevGiles Fraser, asked police to leave the steps rather than remove the protesters.

"We appreciated what Fraser did – he protected us," said Colvin. "We are living in the church's shadow and we want good relations, even though sometimes their attitude can seem slightly patronising.

"But one thing is certain – before I came here I never thought I'd be having so many conversations with bishops."