Is Extinction Rebellion about to unravel?
As a report brands the group’s exploits equal to ‘terrorism’, Eleanor Steafel asks if the end is nigh
At the crossroads where Waterloo Road meets The Cut, the great and good are spilling out of The Old Vic, having just watched Andrew Scott in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter.
Opposite, another performance has been playing out. A tanned, bearded man stands on a boat emblazoned with the words “Act Now”, singing a shanty of sorts, while others stand and sway.
They will be proselytising into the early hours, resting occasionally in the colourful tents that fill Waterloo Millennium Garden. Their protest is peaceful, undisruptive and slightly mesmerising – as if you’ve stumbled upon the stone circle at Glastonbury.
This is the image Extinction Rebellion (XR) would like you to see, this week. Yet this is the same group whose exploits were branded as tantamount to “terrorism”. The group that brought London to a standstill in April – blocking roads and gluing themselves to everything from the London Stock Exchange to the Docklands Light Railway, in protests that saw 1,100 arrests and cost police and businesses some £28million. And the is group openly warning of even greater disruption come October.
It would be difficult to dismiss the gravity of the climate emergency XR wish to avert, but their tactics walk a precarious line between motivation and intimidation, irritating as many people as they inspire. Par for the course, some might say, with activism of any kind – but their future relies on keeping this balance in check, and the cracks are beginning to show.
Increasingly, the real controversy that threatens the movement appears to come from within. Rumours of infighting and bullying among certain factions are rife online – signs that it is being manipulated by individuals with their own agendas, while reports of members distancing themselves over concerns about their more disruptive tactics are on the rise. Are the wheels about to come off?
“It wouldn’t take much for [a bad] reaction to make things difficult for XR,” says Simon Mckibbin, a lecturer at Cambridge University, who has
been a member since November. In an open letter on Facebook, he wrote that he was “horrified and upset” by leaked plans drawn up in May (later postponed) to use drones to shut down Heathrow – a terrorism-related offence, carrying a life sentence.
“Threatening to fly drones in a busy airspace is a departure from the ethics of non violence – indeed threats of any type that expose risk to others who are not willingly involved is violence,” he said. “I believe if this is permitted to go ahead we will lose the goodwill of the public and create massive resistance from the Government … It will, I believe, quite possibly undo all the positive work we’ve done.”
Farhana Yamin, an environmental lawyer who joined XR last year, maybe put it best last month when she said: “The whole world is watching – we shouldn’t be p------ about with drones.”
Yet at the fringes of what purports to be a non-violent group, is increasingly aggressive chatter about “overthrowing the political system”, no matter the cost.
On Wednesday, an investigation for think tank Policy Exchange revealed that XR leaders had declared the movement “the best chance we have of bringing down capitalism” and accepted that people “might die” in the process of “bringing down governments”.
Authored by Richard Walton, a former counterterror chief, the report warned that XR should be treated as an extremist anarchist group intent on “revolution”, aimed at achieving a breakdown of the state and democracy. He also accused XR leaders of threatening permanent recession, and posing a future terror threat with their planned drone stunt.
Walton, who says he wasn’t commissioned by Policy Exchange, told The Daily Telegraph:
“The leaders of [XR] seek a more alarming agenda than pure environmentalism, one that is rooted in an open rebellion against the Government and in the political extremism of anarchism and anti-capitalism.”
When challenged over these statements on the Today programme, Rupert Read, an XR spokesman, was unrepentant. “Our rebellion in October will be stronger and bigger than … April,” he parried, pledging that XR was “absolutely prepared to break the law”.
It is these tactics that are becoming increasingly unpalatable to many XR members, such as Robin Whitlock, 53, a journalist who left in March.
The first red flag, he says, was a heated argument with someone he describes as “a fundamentalist vegan” on one of the group’s Facebook pages: “It was quite clear that she was using XR as a vehicle to push her own views.”
Shortly after that, came news that XR protesters glued themselves to a DLR train: “I just thought, ‘this is really counter productive, this is a real own goal’,” he says. “We want people to be encouraged to go on to public transport … and then all of a sudden XR are blocking a light railway.”
Others concur, citing aggressive infighting. “I will find a different way to help,” writes one on Facebook. “It’s not the different views, it’s the overt bullying. I don’t want to be part of a group that allows it.”
Another says: “I have fought for the environment for more than 40 years. Been vegetarian for most of my life. [...] Now in the most important movement of all, some of us are being bullied by vegans. I have supported XR daily myself in small ways but this group doesn’t give a toss. I’m leaving.”
Ronan Mcnern, a communications officer, says XR “moderates with a light touch generally, but harder if required” across social media and urges people not to push their own agenda. “If you go out and blame and shame all you do is get backs up and it gets people in trenches. I totally condemn anything that puts down other people’s views.”
This message risks being lost in the melee. Whitlock, who describes himself as “centrist” is perturbed by the group’s increasingly “Marxist tinge”. Then there are the protests, which are only alienating many further. XR activist, Zoe Jones was reduced to tears by a clip of a heartbroken man who rang BBC Radio Bristol to describe how he had been prevented from reaching his dying father’s bedside on Wednesday, after protesters glued themselves to a bathtub on one of the city’s busiest roads. Jones said she was “incredibly sorry” but insisted she believed protesters were “doing the right thing”.
“If the campaigners want to continue making headlines, they may be forced to raise the stakes,” warns Walton, “getting greater numbers … arrested, but also prosecuted, by perpetrating ever greater levels of damage and engaging in increasingly illegal and disruptive stunts”.
Christopher Judd, 62, a former XR supporter who has distanced himself from the movement, tells me he believes “legal demonstrations are more likely to attract a wider spectrum of people. Although climate change could destroy civilisation, creating anarchy in the UK is not helpful.”
Mcnern says XR is reassessing the balance of “obstructive versus constructive actions”. “There have been very strong discussions … about what should happen next and the right way to do it. We’re non-violent, we’re totally peaceful, and anything that ever happens that isn’t, is definitely not Extinction Rebellion.”
Let’s hope the militant splinter group is listening.
‘XR seeks a more alarming agenda … that is rooted in open rebellion’