Take a day off and join in fun, urges leader
ONE of the eco-warrior protest leaders was given an ear-bashing on the radio after calling for people to take the day off work and join their ‘fun’.
Extinction Rebellion’s co-founder Gail Bradbrook, 46, called her protests ‘awesome’, telling the Today programme: ‘We’re making history at the minute, people are having a fantastic time on the streets and we really welcome people to come join us.’
But a less-than-impressed Nick Robinson responded: ‘They don’t frankly have the privilege that you do, in order to choose when you can go to work. And they may not appreciate being told they should have fun doing it.’ The climate protester replied: ‘I think it’s really important that people have fun while they’re rebelling actually. What we’re asking is for people to come and join us if they can and people are taking time.’ Dr Bradbrook, 46, is at the heart of an eco-movement based out of a quiet corner of the Cotswolds but now paralysing the capital. Stroud is perhaps most famous as the birthplace of Cider With Rosie author Laurie Lee.
But in contrast to the bucolic childhood the writer describes after his family moved to the nearby village of Slad, Stroud now finds itself at the heart of the climate change protest.
Dr Bradbrook settled in the Gloucestershire market town more than a decade ago because she thought it would be a safer place to bring up her two children.
The scientist first grabbed headlines in local protests against fracking and the construction of an incinerator at Javelin Park near Gloucester, including one where she stripped to her pants outside a council headquarters. Extinction Rebellion was only set up last year and already claims to have a presence in some 100 towns across the UK, including in Stroud, as well as in 35 different countries. ‘Gail is the godmother of this movement,’ the group’s spokesman George Barda once said.
Dr Bradbrook’s partner and fellow co-founder of the movement Simon Bramwell, 46, was taken away in a police van after supergluing himself to the Shell HQ on Monday. Several other of Extinction Rebellion’s Stroud members have also been involved in high profile moments this week.
Four Labour activists Skeena Rathor, 42, a Labour councillor, Richard House, 64, Tracee Williams, 55, and David Lambert, 60, travelled from Stroud and chained themselves to Jeremy Corbyn’s garden wall on Wednesday.