It’s been all of an hour since the last row within the Conservative Party so it’s obviously time for a new one: Extinction Rebellion. Over the weekend mass protests broke out in central London by the usual rabble, though unusually Labour came out to condemn the extremist group yesterday and call for an immediate injunction “to put a stop to this disruption.” The Tories were slightly incredulous given Labour’s opposition to the bill set to ban such protests…
This morning Labour’s anti-Extinction Rebellion stance was slammed by none other than Ben Goldsmith, eco brother of Zac and chair of the Conservative Environment Network, who tweeted “Not a good look from @UKLabour… I’m with @ExtinctionR”. Awkwardly, Ben is also a non-executive director of DEFRA…
Asked for a response to Goldsmith’s tweet a government source replied that George Eustice “was very clear about his view yesterday – people have a right to protest but not when it causes disruption. Ben has commented as an individual, and this isn’t government policy.”
Other responses included one Red Wall Tory telling Guido his tweet “is going down about as spectacularly as the Hindenburg amongst Tory MPs”. The tweet’s unsurprisingly been deleted…
UPDATE: Now Labour’s hit back at Goldsmith, with Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed saying “This from a Conservative official is an insult to people facing misery trying to get to work. While the government continues to refuse to act, Labour has called for immediate injunctions to put a stop to this disruption.”
As Insulate Britain retreats to lick its wounds, like whack-a-mole, another group of eco loons has cropped up to fill the void. Rather than gluing themselves to the road, however, ‘Tyre Extinguishers’ have taken to direct vandalism: they’re deflating the tyres of hundreds of SUVs across multiple cities in the UK – or as they put it, “disarming” them – in an effort to stop “unnecessary luxury emissions“. According to their press release, this is part of their plan to stop “racist” air pollution. (Air pollution is apparently racist because; people of colour live in areas more likely to be exposed to toxic air. SUV drivers tend to be richer, and therefore tend to be white.) Right…
The group is understood to be a splinter group of Extinction Rebellion (obviously), and is known to leave leaflets on the ‘disarmed’ vehicles demanding their owners rely on public transport. “Don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s the car”, they reassuringly claim.
Tyre Extinguishers claim:
“Governments and politicians have failed to protect us from these massive unnecessary vehicles. SUVs are a climate disaster, they cause air pollution and are dangerous for other road users. Everyone hates them, apart from the people who drive them.”
It never ends…
German police demonstrated a no-nonsense approach to dealing with climate road-blockers this morning – the kind that’s sorely lacking here in the UK. Dozens of protestors from “Aufstand der letzten generation” – which translates to “Last Generation Uprising”, a branch of Extinction Rebellion Deutschland – blocked motorway exits in Berlin and demanded a new anti-food waste law, including “the implementation of measures for a sustainable agricultural turnaround by 2030″. Police quickly hauled them all off the road to inevitable accusations of police violence (“Polizeigewalt”). If only Germany were as willing to stand up to Putin with the same verve they do with eco-loons…
Seven Extinction Rebellion fanatics have been fined £250 each today – with six ordered to pay a further £150 – for attempting to protest a Dundee drilling rig last year, only for their dinghy to sink and the authorities having to fish them out of the freezing water. An incident which cost the police, the coastguard, the RNLI (and ultimately, the taxpayer) upwards of £30,000…
The £250 penalties handed out at Dundee Sheriff Court today will be paid to the RNLI, with the additional £150 fines going back into the public purse – a grand total of just £2,650, only £27,350 short of the total bill racked up last year. Sheriff Grant McCulloch, who handed out the measly punishment, said:
“I can understand the temptation to do things that cause maximum interference to daily public life. The flip side is, if you go too far, you endanger yourself and others and that is what happened here.”
The protest, which involved scaling the 300ft heights of the rig, was planned to last an entire week. In the end, it fell apart after a few hours. The solicitor representing the activists said “I put that down to youth and inexperience”…
The Centre for Army Leadership has announced they’re to host Extinction Rebellion’s Chris Taylor at their Culture and Leadership Conference on 1st December. According to the announcement Taylor will talk on “Leadership in a time of social collapse”. Guido imagines Her Majesty’s forces will be only too happy to be lectured by a spokesman for a group that last year hijacked Remembrance Day to daub the Cenotaph in extremist protest garb reading “Climate change means war”.
Surely the army should be busy dealing with loons like Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain – not taking lectures from them…
UPDATE: In just under two hours his invite has been rescinded
While the CAL encourages diverse thinking and alternative views, we recognise the challenge of inviting a member of XR to speak at our conference. At the direction of the Army’s Director Leadership, Chris Taylor will no longer attend.
— Centre for Army Leadership (@Army_Leadership) November 9, 2021
Nadhim Zahawi has finally come out swinging against the eco-loons’ infiltration of schools via woke teachers. Speaking to GB News this morning from COP, the education secretary slammed the teaching of Extinction Rebellion in schools, particularly for younger kids:
“Schools should always remember impartiality. Any contested theory should not be promoted, or if they are, they should be – depending on the year group – people should hear both sides of any argument. But very importantly, it should be very much around the evidence, and impartiality is very important, and not to politicise this in any way. And political groups like Extinction Rebellion should not be promoted in any school.“
Harwood related the conversation back to a story published during his last gig, with Zahawi commenting it was not acceptable for schools like Ramsgate Arts Primary School to promote the group’s “climate justice”, as Guido revealed back in 2019. About time…
