Riders at next week’s Tour de Yorkshire could be greeted by up to 10,000 people wearing masks depicting the UK’s richest man as the devil after his chemical company took over sponsorship of cycling’s most successful team.
Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who has lobbied to weaken green taxes and reduce restrictions on fracking, is the main shareholder of Ineos, which has been announced as the new sponsor of what was Team Sky – home to Tour de France winners Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas.
The Tour de Yorkshire, which starts in Doncaster next Thursday, will be the team’s first outing in Ineos kit. Protests are expected all along the route of the four-day race by campaigners incensed at the firm’s involvement in the sport – and its determination to frack for shale gas in the county.
Steve Mason from Frack Free United said the group had ordered 10,000 face masks of Ratcliffe with devil’s horns to give out to cycling fans during the race, and said other local activists were planning special anti-Ineos “land art” to be captured by helicopter cameras televising the race.
“I don’t think fossil fuels should be included in sport,” said Mason. “There is particular irony with the Ineos sponsorship after Team Sky spent last summer riding around with whales on the back of their jerseys to raise awareness of plastics in the ocean.”
Ineos is one of the world’s biggest plastics producers and also holds extensive licences to frack for shale gas across Yorkshire, as well as the east Midlands and Cheshire. Many of its proposed sites are along the Tour de Yorkshire route.
Local anti-fracking groups are planning their own actions: Frack Free Leeds will unfurl banners on the final stage of the race on Sunday 6 May with Yorkshire slogans such as: “Ineos, tha’s not welcome here.”
All stress they have no plans to disrupt the race itself but simply to make themselves seen and heard.
Earlier this month Ineos lost a legal battle after appeal court judges overturned a “draconian and anti-democratic” injunction it had been granted against protesters.
Simon Bowens, Yorkshire and Humber campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: “Ineos shouldn’t be trying to greenwash cycling. The Tour de Yorkshire is a fantastic event showcasing much of the county’s best assets. Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos, with the lion’s share of the 6,000km2 of the county licensed for fracking, is a major risk to this wonderful part of the country. Everyone here is very excited for this event and nobody is planning to impede the course, the hard work and professionalism of the riders is respected too much.”
Shelley Bath, a founder member of Frack Free Allerton Bywater in south-east Leeds, which is planning a protest on a roundabout in the village of Kippax, said it was “a disgrace” that “one of the greenest forms of transport is being sponsored by one of the dirtiest industries”.
When Team Sky becomes Team Ineos at the start of next month it will not be the only cycling team sponsored by the oil and gas industry. Also competing in the Tour de Yorkshire is Total Direct Energie, named after the French energy company. A spokesperson for Welcome to Yorkshire said: “As a tourism body we organise the Tour de Yorkshire to promote the county to a worldwide audience and have no control over the sponsorship of the teams taking part.”
A spokesman for Team Sky said: “The team remains committed to reducing its use of single-use plastics and is proud of the awareness we have helped raise so far. We know this will continue to be a priority for Ineos given their own commitment to new technological solutions on plastics recycling and reuse. Ineos is committed to moving towards a circular economy where waste plastic is used as a raw material back into its process, not ending up in the sea.”
