Extinction Rebellion’s eco-fanatics are the very definition of dangerous extremism
AWith Putin rampant and energy prices soaring, there is no excuse for their selfish posturing
With all the things going on in the world at the moment, it is the mark of a true extremist that even now they will not alter their demands
s the writer Dennis Potter was dying of cancer, he memorably mentioned that he felt unjustifiably surprised that his psoriasis hadn’t now had the decency to leave him alone. Surely to God, now the cancer was here, this wretched skin condition would give him a break?
I hope it is no insult to the late, great screenwriter if I mention that I had a similar thought this week when I read that the fanatics of Extinction Rebellion were planning a fresh set of protests in our country from the beginning of April. According to the eco-extremists, from April 9 they plan to “flood” London with activists and “create the most roadblocks we ever have”. They have also promised, with their usual grace and charm, to be “disruptive and impossible to ignore”. They also plan to blockade oil refineries.
With all the things going on in the world at the moment, it is the mark of a true extremist – as members of Extinction Rebellion are – that even now they will not alter their demands. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has precipitated a global energy crisis that is only going to grow in the weeks and months ahead. Energy prices are already rocketing and affecting every household in the country. As the West removes itself from the teat of Russian oil and gas, we are going to need all of the domestic and European energy we can get if we are going to follow through on our threats and shut out Putin as punishment for his illegal invasion of Ukraine.
If we were dealing with any reasonable group of people, we might expect them to give us all a break in this period of closer, deadlier peril. But there is no bargaining with Extinction Rebellion. If there is one thing they have shown us over recent years, it is that they are more than simply an irritant or something unsightly. They are a gaggle of utterly implacable fanatics. Of a kind that our society has often seen throughout its history, most commonly in some millenarian religious guise.
Of course, this is hardly the first signs of crazy that Extinction Rebellion have shown. In the past, under various guises (including the banal-titled front group Insulate Britain), they have shown themselves willing to do absolutely anything for their cause. They have been prepared to disrupt the lawful business of everybody else in the nation.
Last year, as the pandemic restrictions were lifting and this country desperately needed to be able to get back to work, Extinction Rebellion once again showed that they did not give a damn about anyone or anything else. Least of all the economy. They did all they could to clog our major road arteries again to stop the nation from working. On previous occasions, they have been willing to block bridges and stop ambulances getting dying patients into hospitals. They have also blockaded the production plants of the printing presses of major national newspapers, an egregious assault on the free press.
They have attacked public and private buildings, often egged on by multimillionaire celebrities who pretend that this is just the unpleasant sort of stuff you have to do if you are going to save the planet. For this, and much more, has all been done, of course, in the name of saving humanity. There is no inhumanity of which people aren’t capable once they have made such a vaunted goal their aim.
But it is in their timing as much as their tactics that Extinction Rebellion show the true nature of their extremism. Last year, they did not care that this country’s economy needed desperately to stutter back to life.
Likewise, it seems to be of no interest to them now that a far bigger ailment has just arrived on our horizon: a war at the borders of Europe that has all the potential to turn into a full-blown conflict between nuclear powers. You would have thought that such a mortal threat – to millions of people in Ukraine, and many millions of others around the world – would make your irritant cause go away. But Extinction Rebellion clearly don’t think they are the irritant. Nor do they think that a Russian leader openly implying that he might use nuclear weapons is a more pressing problem.
XR are too busy complaining about nuclear power to care about nuclear war. They are too busy talking about temperatures in the 2050s to think about people immiserated right now in the 2020s. They are too busy pursuing their opposition to almost all forms of energy to consider the possibility that at this precise moment in history we need whatever sources of energy we can get our hands on.
But fanatics never can change their tune. And they do not mind everybody else suffering for it. One of the reasons why this country never got fracking in the past decade was because of actual Kremlin interference – a funding campaign of disinformation into which Moscow pumped tens of millions of pounds. But the other force that stopped fracking in this country (a process that would have transformed not just our energy supply but areas of our country that badly need the jobs) were fanatics like those of XR. They opposed fracking on environmental grounds. As they also oppose drilling, including further drilling in the North Sea. And as they also oppose nuclear power. And so on, and on.
A wise person adapts to the situation around them. A judicious person recognises their own cause in relation to the other priorities of their time. But fanatics such as those of XR will never do these things. Not just because they are injudicious and unwise, but because they are fundamentally selfish. They believe that they hold the only truth that matters and that everybody else must suffer – to the utmost extent, if need be – until such a time as everyone recognises the fanatic to be right. They are a great irritant, to be sure. And though there is no logic that could make them go away, still one wishes they would leave us alone now. At this moment, if not for good.
Douglas Murray’s new book ‘The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason’ (HarperCollins, £20) will be published next month