I've realised that my last blog post, outlining the personal cost to arrestees, may have come across a bit negative. If the consequences are that bad, then why on earth would you take action that could lead to arrest and a criminal conviction? What were the positive outcomes of the April Rebellion? The basic facts were that Extinction Rebellion managed to shut down major parts of London at Marble Arch; Oxford Circus; Waterloo Bridge; and Parliament Squarefpr almost two weeks. Tens of thousands of Rebels were drawn to the cause. About 1,200 of them were arrested, mostly for minor public order offences (like myself), and all of them are currently clogging up the courts in London for months to come. But the most important things to come out of it was the shift in public consciousness. In the first few days of the rebellion, the headlines were predictably hostile, with 'The Daily Mail' complaining about Police 'inaction' as they showed photos of smiling officers walking past protesters, and listing the various forms of disruption that London was facing. But after a few days, the public perception began to shift.
After a few days more the headlines became more supportive; commentators began speaking of the righteousness of our cause, and the public, moved by the strict 'non-violence' discipline of XR rebels and the self-sacrifice of many hundreds of them willingly offering themselves up for arrest, began to sympathise with us. Of course, there were some who advocated police using force, even some suggesting that the Army be brought in to use lethal force (as they were at Peterloo two centuries before); but these, of course, were the exception rather than the rule.
The biggest victory that we won was the public perception that the climate emergency was real. It was an EMERGENCY, something had to be done; and ignoring it (as it had been ignored for decades) was no longer an option. This alone made it all worth it; but then on 29th April, youth representatives from XR met with environment secretary Michael Gove to discuss the Government's response to the emergency. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48109764 Gove admitted that XR were 'on the money' with their demand for the Government to 'tell the truth' about the scale of the climate emergency and that there needed to be a deeper level of public understanding over climate change. He also said he was "open-minded" about the possibility of citizens' assemblies, but disagreed with the urgency of action and refused to declare a climate emergency. But then on the very next day Parliament unanimously agreed to declare a climate emergency (although subsequent actions have proved that this was merely a PR exercise). The prospect of a Conservative Government agreeing to meet with a street protest group dedicated to mass acts of (non-violent) mass civil disobedience, and actually agreeing that many of their core demands were reasonable is in itself astonishing. It is proof that what XR did in April (and will do again on a larger scale in October) IS working, and IS the right tactic to avert catastrophe.
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