Good morning. Extinction Rebellion was founded on a genuinely radical idea: disruptive civil disobedience that was much less concerned with the popularity of the perpetrators than cultivating a sense that the issue they were highlighting was an emergency. Their arrival marked a sea change in climate protest in the UK, drew massive public attention, and made waves around the world. Now, however, Extinction Rebellion has released a statement titled: “We quit”.
XR is not quitting climate activism: instead, in a statement released on New Year’s Day said, the group said they were giving up on massive disruption, aiming to build a mass movement, instead. But in some ways, they have already made that shift – and a new generation of radical protesters have taken up the mantle. Another news story yesterday evidenced the urgency of the case they are all seeking to make, one way or another: Monday was the warmest January day ever recorded in at least eight European countries.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Damien Gayle, an environment correspondent for the Guardian, about the thinking behind XR’s decision – and what it means for the future of radical protest about the climate crisis. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Health | The NHS crisis will continue until Easter, health leaders warned, as senior doctors accused ministers of letting patients die needlessly through inaction. Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said he expected further critical incidents for the next three months.
Strikes | Rail companies are “in despair” over the government’s handling of the pay dispute, the union leader Mick Lynch said, before the start of the first of five consecutive days of national rail strikes on Tuesday. Lynch said that ministers had been absent from talks since mid-December.
Ukraine | A New Year’s Day attack in the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Makiivka has killed scores of troops recently sent by Moscow, in one of deadliest strikes against Russia’s forces since the war began. Russia said 63 troops were killed, while Ukraine claimed up to 400 had died.
Monarchy | The Duke of Sussex wants his father and brother back, he says in an interview due to be broadcast this Sunday, two days before his memoir is published. In a preview clip released by ITV, Harry said: “I want a family, not an institution.”
Martina Navratilova | The 66-year-old tennis great has been diagnosed with throat and breast cancers, she said on Monday. The former world No 1, who holds a record 59 grand-slam titles, said that the “double whammy” was “serious but fixable”.
In depth: ‘The conditions for change have never been more favourable – it’s time to seize the moment’
While Extinction Rebellion’s statement is summarised in the headline-grabbing phrase “we quit”, the long version is less a resignation than a reorientation. XR is promising a “temporary shift away from public disruption as a primary tactic”, but they also say that they will now “prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks, as we stand together and become impossible to ignore”.
XR links this new focus to a bet that tumult in the wider political climate means that people may now be more receptive to the message: “The conditions for change in the UK have never been more favourable – it’s time to seize the moment. The confluence of multiple crises presents us with a unique opportunity to mobilise and move beyond traditional divides.”
To that end, they are planning a protest outside the Houses of Parliament on 21 April which they hope will attract 100,000 people. “Their view is that it can be alienating towards an everyday trade unionist to have disruptive protests that are stopping people getting to work, getting criticised on talk radio, and so on,” Damien Gayle said. The new approach is meant to make that 21 April protest more palatable to those people.
One crucial question when interpreting the XR statement is who it is speaking for. “XR says it operates according to a decentralised model,” Damien said. “So there will have been a group responsible for this statement, but there’s nothing stopping individual XR groups from taking more radical action, and no overarching discipline if they do.”
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How did Extinction Rebellion get here?
A casual observer might view this news as a sudden break with the past, but debates over whether to stick to a radical approach or seek to broaden the movement have been part of XR’s evolution from very early on. “This is more a reflection of what’s already been happening than something new,” Damien said.
In this excellent long read from 2020, Matthew Taylor lays out the internal debates that began soon after the first successful April 2019 “rebellion”: one side believed that “a relatively small group of people” could bring “an escalation in provocative direct action to keep the momentum going”. The other thought that “the good will and moral high ground achieved in April should be used to build a broader movement”.
That debate was tied to a sense that leading figures had failed to recognise the narrowness of their own perspective as older, middle-class, mostly white activists. A proposed shutdown of Heathrow airport was abandoned, but taken on by a new group led by XR co-founder Roger Hallam, without much success.
Later “rebellions” charted a similar course to the initial April action but drew less attention as direct action became a more familiar approach. “When XR first appeared, we were completely gobsmacked by the idea they could blockade Waterloo Bridge for days at a time with hundreds of arrests,” Damien said. “But now those sort of actions look almost tame. We’re used to them.”
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Has direct action already fallen off the agenda?
No. In October 2021, a new group called Insulate Britain made a dramatic impact by blocking busy roads during a five-week campaign – and while they drew the apoplexy of Boris Johnson’s government and parts of the media, they also had success with their prescient demand to get home insulation on to the political agenda.
Last year, a new round of protests by Insulate Britain were accompanied by direct action from the group Just Stop Oil, the most infamous of which saw the group throw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers. (No damage was caused to the painting.) Both groups were co-founded by Roger Hallam, who split from XR before the Heathrow protests. “Those radical elements that would have once been attracted to XR are already bypassing it, and going straight to the likes of Just Stop Oil,” Damien said.
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What are the arguments about the best way forward?
One of the most interesting and persuasive cases for the emergence of a less abrasive strategy in the climate protest movement is also much misunderstood: its proponents insist they are not repudiating what has already happened, but building on it.
In a recent episode of the Accidental Gods podcast, Rupert Read, who helped to launch XR and who is now one of the most prominent voices of the wider “moderate flank”, put it like this: “The greatest compliment we can pay now to what we accomplished in Extinction Rebellion and the other parts of the radical flank in 2019 … is to exploit it fully, to encourage and enable a far larger group of people to march through the widened Overton window.”
This argument might be seen as suggesting a future where radical and moderate approaches can be symbiotic rather than opposed, with one approach inculcating a sense of urgency, and the other helping a critical mass of people to see what they can do about it. “One theory is that the radical flank can actually make the more moderate groups more popular because they don’t look extreme in comparison,” Damien said.
But Read does seem to see diminishing returns in the continuation of disruptive protests, and implies that they are largely a spent force. In this fascinating YouTube conversation from last January with Roger Hallam, he says that XR’s successes were “quite a thin achievement that have not come to dominate everyday politics. We have not moved into emergency mode.”
Others disagree that a more moderate approach will help solve this. In this October piece answering another from Read, Just Stop Oil’s Indigo Rumbelow argues that disruption is “an electric shock that calls upon people to see the horror of what’s unfolding before us”. In that YouTube video, Roger Hallam suggested that a different approach could be actively counterproductive: “If you present a moderate flank proposition, you’re sort of letting people off the hook.”
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So does XR’s decision mean the end of direct action?
That is very unlikely: those within XR who believe in continuing the disruptive approach are likely to align themselves with other groups that intend to do exactly that. And last night Damien reported that Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil both saying that they remain committed to civil resistance. Still, the news does signal the public resolution of a debate inside XR that made the disruptive approach inescapable.
The vital question now is whether Hallam is right that this will mean a dissipation of activist energy – or, as Read hopes, herald a new mass movement that can reach new heights by casting off trivial controversies about road closures and vandalism. One thing they all agree on is the urgency of the case. As the XR statement says: “Despite the blaring alarm on the climate and ecological emergency ringing loud and clear, very little has changed.”
To read more about protest and the climate crisis by Damien Gayle and others, subscribe to Down to Earth, our weekly environment newsletter.
What else we’ve been reading
The latest in the Guardian’s series of musical acts to watch in 2023 is George Riley. Christine Ochefu breaks down the 25-year-old’s fresh and striking R&B. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
Zoe Williams has an outrageously biased piece about why Gen X are best at Christmas games. Despite Gen Z’s “fine motor skills” and millennial “serious-mindedness”, everyone else fails to grasp that “where luck is a component, you should cast yourself wholesale on it – victory will be sweeter and defeat not bitter at all”. Archie
Last autumn, Charlotte Higgins started to learn Ukrainian, logging on for Zoom lessons with her instructor, Olya Makar, live from the west of the country. Her piece is a fine account of how a language can itself be a form of resistance: “Studying the language goes way beyond the practical. It makes me feel a connection.” Archie
Little and often can be the best way to get things done. So too, writes Emma Beddington, is it an effective way to spread some kindness in 2023. Her list of 52 things to do to help others this year range from joining a stem cell donor registry and mentoring children ... to simply emptying an overflowing bin you’d hoped someone else would deal with. Hannah
Here’s a lovely piece for the Atlantic by Kelly McMasters about family, love after divorce, and squirrels – which, like humans, “require an adult partner in order to be considered not alone”. Archie
Sport
Premier League | Liverpool fell to a disappointing 3-1 defeat against Brentford, who extended their unbeaten run to six games through goals from Ibrahima Konate, Yoane Wissa, and Bryan Mbeumo. With Liverpool now four points off the Champions League places, Jonathan Wilson said the result could be “evidence of an ageing squad in need of rejuvenation”.
Scottish Premiership | Rangers and Celtic drew 2-2 in the Old Firm derby, with Rangers coming back from 1-0 down to lead 2-1 before Kyogo Furuhashi’s late equaliser.
Golf | For all the hype about the arrival of Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf last year, its impact as an exercise in sportswashing looks hazy compared to the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo in the Saudi Arabian league, Ewen Murray writes. “The LIV story of 2022 was fascinating on account of the ‘Will he, won’t he’ narrative of players tempted by their blank cheques,” he says. “Without such a narrative in 2023, will anybody care?”
The front pages
Welcome back in 2023 to the First Edition paper roundup. “‘Intolerable’ NHS crisis will last until Easter, health leaders warn” – that’s the Guardian’s front page lead this morning. “Future of NHS is on a knife edge”, says the Daily Mirror, while the i has “NHS faces three months of turmoil”. “UK recession will be deepest and longest, say economists” – that’s among G7 countries, the Financial Times goes on to explain. “Millions ‘will shun trains forever’” as a results of strikes, it is predicted in the Times. The Telegraph’s lead is “Prince Harry: I want my father and brother back” and others jump on that story too, with the Daily Mail, the Sun, and the Daily Express all opting for versions of the same headline.
Today in Focus
Culture 2023: our picks for film, TV, music and art
The Guardian’s arts editor Alex Needham, music and features writer Sam Wolfson, and film critic Ellen E Jones on what they’re looking forward to this year
Cartoon of the day | Ella Baron
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Tweaked 800 times over the course of a year, a vegan foie gras created by a Madrid startup has proved a runaway hit, leaving the company’s founder “absolutely gobsmacked”. Javier Fernández of Hello Plant Foods said the company had increased production sevenfold to keep up with the demand for Fuah!, an alternative to the liver-based delicacy, usually made from duck or goose. While some are critical of products which seek to emulate the taste and texture of meat, for Fernández it’s a crucial part of changing consumers’ behaviour. “The only way that change happens is when the product is excellent and very similar to what people are going to give up,” he says. “We’ve solved that.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
• This article was amended on 3 January 2023 to note that Rupert Read was not a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion but helped to launch it and was a frequent spokesperson.
