Extinction Rebellion

In the year of unprecedented wildfires and flash flooding, we seem to be at a tipping point when it comes to dealing with catastrophic climate change, and yet our leaders, the nature of capitalism and our own apparent inability to deal with the enormity of the crisis have left us, if not in denial, then largely in a state of paralysis.

Today marks the 36th anniversary of the Battle of the Beanfield, when the police, under Margaret Thatcher, destroyed, with unprecedented violence, a convoy of vehicles containing men, women and children, as they tried to make their way to Stonehenge to set up what would have been the 12th annual Stonehenge Free Festival. Despite the trauma caused that day, the Tories continued to persecute Travellers, passing punitive legislation in 1986 and 1994, and now, under Priti Patel, are seeking to outlaw the entire nomadic way of life through a draconian clampdown on “trespass” in the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

My assessment of the first year of Covid lockdowns, and how, on two occasions — last June, and last weekend — political protests have erupted, regarding racial oppression and women’s rights, when the logical limits of strict lockdowns have been reached. Plus a much more critical analysis of the parallel world of Covid denial.

My response to the police violence at the peaceful vigil for Sara Everard on Clapham Common, and its curious timing, coinciding with the second reading of home secretary Priti Patel’s horribly authoritarian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021, which seeks to legislate meaningful protest out of existence.

An interview about my activism — involving Stonehenge and the Battle of the Beanfield, Guantánamo, the housing ‘regeneration’ industry in the UK, and the currently unfolding environmental crisis — as published in Gonzo Weekly and International Times, based on questions from the publisher and activist Alan Dearling.

Promoting the release of ‘This Time We Win’, the new single by The Four Fathers, which I wrote last year, inspired by Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion, and which we recorded in December with Charlie Hart, who also plays Wurlitzer piano on it. Ironically, the arrival of the coronavirus has led suddenly to seriously reduced emissions, although our leaders are desperate to restore “business as usual” as soon as they can, a delusional position that we hope as many people as possible will resist.

One year ago, Extinction Rebellion activists (myself included) occupied several sites in central London, bringing traffic to a halt, in an environmental precursor to what the collapse of “business as usual” looks like under the coronavirus lockdown. How can we make sure that, as the crisis passes, we don’t simply return to the suicidally irresponsible culture that existed until just a month ago, which was speeding us towards environmental destruction.

My report on the welcome news last week that the High Court ruled that a decision by the Metropolitan Police to impose a blanket ban on Extinction Rebellion in London last month was unlawful – and my warning that we need to be vigilant, and to ensure that no draconian new law is introduced, as happened in the 1980s and 1990s, after the Battle of the Beanfield and Castlemorton, with the Public Order Act and the Criminal Justice Act.

I report on the Metropolitan Police’s outrageous decision to impose a London-wide ban on Extinction Rebellion protests (gatherings of two or more people), criticism of the move, a legal challenge, and, most particularly, how non-violent direct action has continued, with the numbers attending actions indicating that the Met’s move may have backfired.

As the second week of Extinction Rebellion’s International Rebellion begins, I report on the success of the group’s disruptive tactics, drawing in part on the campaigning group’s co-founder Roger Hallam’s new book, ‘Common Sense for the 21st Century.’