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It was a great relief to read in your last issue the editorial entitled XR, ‘Don’t Overpromise!’ (PN 2664) It really was spot on. We are active members of our local group and are glad that the London events beginning on 21 April will, for the first time, involve peace and other campaigning organisations. But you hit the nail on the head in that title.
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This note is addressed to the many people who are gathering in London in April, brought together by Extinction Rebellion (XR), hoping to contribute to positive action to tackle climate change.
In promoting this event, XR suggested that: ‘Gathering peacefully in such large numbers at the nation’s seat of power will create a positive, irreversible, societal tipping point.’ They referred to ‘the power of people power’, as shown by the success of nonviolent mass demonstrations in the…
On 1 January, the direct action climate group Extinction Rebellion (XR) UK announced that it was making a ‘controversial’ New Year’s resolution to ‘temporarily shift away from public disruption as a primary tactic’. The move seems to have been partly motivated by a fear of the new public order legislation the government has brought in to suppress disruptive direct action.
The XR statement, headed ‘We Quit’, ended by promoting ‘The Big One’, a massive multi-day action that XR plans to…
On 13 January, Friends of the Earth (FoE) and South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC) filed applications in the high court to take legal action against the government over the construction of a new coalmine in Cumbria, in North-West England. The two organisations have co-operated in designing their legal challenges to dovetail rather than overlap.
The reason for their request for a judicial review is the decision of Levelling Up secretary, Michael Gove, to grant planning…
Do I support mobilising large numbers of people to join in the climate protest in Central London taking place on 21 April, organised by Extinction Rebellion (XR)?
Yes.
Do I think it will have a positive effect on the political debate in Britain and maybe elsewhere?
Yes.
Do I agree with how XR are describing and explaining this protest?
No. Definitely not.
I think that XR has taken ‘talking big’ to a whole new level that is damaging to their own…
This is a moment of huge potential
On one hand, there are many reasons to feel the future is bleak: recent failure of COP27, vicious attacks on migrants, unravelling living standards, widening inequality, crashing biodiversiy, and extreme weather events brought about by worsening climate conditions to name a few. On the other hand, there is a unique opportunity to unite across divides for effective action, and there is an amazing potential for change.
Along with the peace…
On 2 September, Extinction Rebellion (XR), the climate change direct action group, carried out actions at the Westminster parliament in London. Three XR members glued themselves to a chain inside the chamber of the house of commons. Two other campaigners held large banners reading: ‘Citizens Assembly Now’ and ‘Let the People Decide’.
Meanwhile, another two XR activists D-locked themselves by their necks to the gates to the members’ car park and an eighth rebel climbed up the…
There were a huge number of climate actions in April and May, organised by Extinction Rebellion (XR) and its spin-off, the Just Stop Oil (JSO) coalition.
JSO reported over 965 arrests by 15 April as a result of two weeks of daily blockades of oil terminals and petrol stations all over the country, including in Birmingham, Essex, London and Southampton.
By 4 May, the total had grown to over 1,200 arrests, according to the group.
JSO demands that the government calls a…
Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Insulate Britain co-founder Roger Hallam has been touring the UK recently, recruiting for his latest nonviolent direct action project: Just Stop Oil. Among other things, he’s been telling audiences that we’re looking at experiencing a 7 ºC temperature rise by 2042 (possibly sooner) – and that solving the climate crisis ‘is not complicated’.
These claims deserve examination. Hallam expressed them, for example, in a talk in Hastings on 10 January. (I’m…
On 14 January, the appeal court cut XR activist James Brown’s sentence to four months. With time off for good behaviour, this meant that he was not returned to prison. He had already served 10 weeks and six days, which was over half his four-month sentence.
James was released from Wandsworth prison on 8 December, on bail, while the appeal court reviewed his conviction and sentence.
James, a blind gold-medal-winning Paralympian, had been given a 12-month sentence at Southwark…
On 10 December, six climate activists were found ‘not guilty’ by a jury at Inner London crown court of obstructing a Docklands Light Railway (DLR) train at Canary Wharf station in East London on 25 April 2019. Five of them were from Christian Climate Action (CCA).
On 14 January, three CCA direct actionists were found ‘not guilty’ by another jury at the same court. They had also stopped a DLR train, this time at Shadwell station, on 17 October 2019. (One of them had also taken part in…
On 24 September, Paralympic gold medallist James Brown, 56, was sentenced to 12 months in prison for an Extinction Rebellion (XR) action at London City Airport during XR’s October 2019 ‘Rebellion’.
This first custodial sentence for an XR action was imposed for the offence of causing ‘a public nuisance’.
Alanna Byrne, of Extinction Rebellion UK, said: ‘We are shocked and devastated by this news.’
Human rights activist Peter Tatchell tweeted: ‘It’s an excessively harsh…
At the end of August, the climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) struck a new note, politically, when it began its latest two-week ‘rebellion’ in London. It put a much more achievable demand at the centre of its protests: the UK government must stop all new fossil fuel investment immediately.
The actions mostly focused on disrupting the heart of finance in the UK, the City of London, though there were also occupations of the Science Museum, Oxford Circus, and (in Woking) the…
On 12 July, 29 campaigners from climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) had their first court hearings at City of London magistrates' court. They were facing public order charges arising from XR's 11 days of mass action in London in April.
Two courtrooms have been reserved at Westminster magistrates' court in Marylebone Road to process 50 activists every Friday for 19 weeks.
1,130 arrests were made in April; only 79 people were charged at the time, XR reports.
On…
It would be difficult to exaggerate the scale of our current ecological crisis. But not impossible.
In XR’s April 2019 video, ‘Act as if the Truth is Real’, actor and XR spokesperson Sam Knights says: ‘we're not alarmist and we don't exaggerate’. [1] Yet, from the beginning, some of XR’s most prominent spokespeople have done just that.
In his 61-page booklet, Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse…
