Insulate Britain protest defended
VEG farmer and co-founder of environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion, Roger Hallam has been criticised for publicly supporting the actions of Insulate Britain protesters this week.
Mr Hallam, who says he is just a supporter of Insulate Britain and not the founder, defended protesters who were criticised for refusing to move to allow a woman to see her mother in hospital.
The Carmarthenshire farmer, who owns an organic farm near Llandeilo called Werndolau, told a podcast he would not move for someone in distress - and would even be willing to block an ambulance – in the name of climate protest.
In a video by LBC, Insulate Britain protestors refuse to move even when a woman becomes extremely distressed, calling the protestors “selfish” while pleading with them to move. She even points out that she drives an electric car.
Talking to the “Unbreak the Planet” podcast on Tuesday, Mr
Hallam said: “The disruption creates two things. It creates a polarisation. Over the longer term, people say “that was justified because of the objective injustice that those people were highlighting through the disruption”.
“It’s through persisting in the disruption, there’s a breakthrough point. That breakthrough point comes very fast.”
He continued: “The reason why Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain will win is because we are objectively right.
“The question is how far do you go? You have to go a lot further than what is conventionally considered appropriate.”
Podcast host Dr Mike Galsworthy referred directly to the controversial video. He asked: “What would you do in this situation?”
Mr Hallam’s reply was: “I would stay there.”
When asked if he would also stop an ambulance going through, Mr Hallam replied simply, “yes”.
Insulate Britain have said that they have a policy to let emergency vehicles through any roadblock.
Mr Hallam said: “We are looking at the death of billions of people in the global south who are completely innocent.
“Civil resistance is not purist. People get hurt in political disruption.”
In 2018, Mr Hallam, 55, co-founded Extinction Rebellion while studying civil disobedience at King’s College London.
Since then, he has become involved in a number of groups, including Insulate Britain. On the October 5 podcast, Mr Hallam said that he supports the Insulate Britain project by facilitating meetings between campaigners and professionals.
He says that he is “not involved in the operation of the campaign”.
On the podcast, Mr Hallam said: “There’s example after example after example of people taking direct action which is unpopular at the time but was undoubtedly effective in changing social attitudes.
“When we were looking at doing mass civil disobedience at the start in 2019, lots of people said no one is interested in the climate.
“The whole of the news agenda was dominated by Brexit.
“How are you going to capture the attention? We said we can’t afford not to take the risk.
“It’s not like if you don’t sort it out this year, you’ve always got next year. That’s not the situation.”