Climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) has vowed to temporarily shift focus away from public disruption as its primary means of action.
The organisation now aims to prioritise “relationships over roadblocks”.
In a message labelled We Quit and posted on its website on Hogmanay, the group said it had made the “controversial resolution to temporarily shift away from public disruption as a primary tactic”.
Though it said it still recognised the power of disruption to raise attention to its cause, it added: “Constantly evolving tactics is a necessary approach.”
Staying radical
But it also pledged to remain “radical” in its response to the current climate and ecological emergency.
The group continued: “In a time when speaking out and taking action are criminalised, building collective power, strengthening in number and thriving through bridge-building is a radical act.
“XR is committed to including everyone in this work and leaving no one behind, because everyone has a role to play. This year, we prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks, as we stand together and become impossible to ignore.”
It comes as fellow pressure group Just Stop Oil used a similar New Year’s message to demand police and courts stop arresting and jailing protesters.
The statements follow waves of protests, demonstrations and other direct action in the years since XR’s foundation in late 2018.
This has included repeated marches and sit-ins which succeeded in bringing large parts of London to a standstill, as well as more targeted actions – such as protestors gluing themselves in a human chain around the speaker’s chair in the House of Commons last year.
Throughout 2022 an XR offshoot group dubbed Insulate Britain also held a series of sit-down protests, blocking traffic on key roads including the M25 ring road around London.
Aberdeen has seen its fair share of stunts too, owing to the concentration of oil and gas firms in the city, with the likes of Shell, BP, EnQuest and others the subject of protests.
Most recently, this included a protest at Aberdeen’s Christmas village, with demonstrators gathering outside the Marischal Square headquarters of the North Sea Transition Authority to voice opposition to the Jackdaw and Rosebank developments.
The Big One
Despite its change of tack, XR has called on more people to sign up to its plans to surround the Houses of Parliament in London in April.
Dubbed The Big One, the days-long event seeks to have 100,000 people on Parliament Square for the group’s biggest action to date.
Launching a 100 Days campaign counting down to the protest on April 21, XR invited “all humans, all movements, all organisations to come together and stay for as long as you can”.
It added: “Surrounding the Houses of Parliament day after day in large numbers means we can leave the locks, glue and paint behind and instead demonstrate faith in a critical mass of people to create a moment that’s impossible to ignore.”
Conversation