Militant seniors at heart of capital demonstrations

A MILITANT band of silver-haired citizens are at the centre of climate protests that brought London to a standstill.

Some 340 people have been arrested since Monday when hundreds of people from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion took control of four sites, closing it to traffic and causing commuter chaos.

The Metropolitan Police said the activists had caused “serious disruption” as they took over Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Oxford Circus. Passengers were left stranded after Luke Watson, 29, glued his hand to the side of a Docklands Light Railway train at Canary Wharf station.

London mayor Sadiq Khan said the group were “risking” the safety of Londoners.

Filling the group’s ranks are a band of older eco-warriors using their retirement to take on the climate cause and say they feel little regret at the disruption they’ve caused and say they are happy to be arrested in the process.

Husband and wife Jenny and Derrick Langley from Cambridge are spending their retirement teaching Extinction Rebellion protesters how to safely blockade streets and what to do if they’re arrested.

Derrick, a former photographer, has been arrested twice but says he is spurred on by the thought of his grandchildren aged three and one. He said: “I look in their eyes and I think about what’s going to happen to them. I think are you going to end up starving to death? Are you going to end up drowning?

“I’m sorry we’ve been disruptive but we want a future for our grandchildren and all life on earth and this seems like the most likely way of bringing it to attention.”

Retired teacher Jenny, 63, added: “I want to be on the right side of history. I don’t want to be the generation that had everything and didn’t care about the future.”

For many of this generation, urgency is vital. A report from world-leading scientists last October found we have 12 years to stop global warming from going above the agreed safe limit of 1.5C.

Retired government research scientist and grandad-of-five Terry Goodchild, 74, said: “We are prepared to go to prison for it. It’s worked in the past.

“If we stick with this level of C02 in the atmosphere we are headed for extinction.”

Grandmother-of-four Ginny Waters, 68, said she is prepared to stay on the protest for weeks and is happy to be arrested.

Four campaigners glued themselves to a fence outside Jeremy Corbyn’s home in Islington, North London.

They said they support Mr Corbyn but want the Labour Party to go further than declaring a “climate emergency”.

Mr Corbyn did not speak to them.

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