Roof spikes and the noble art of window smashing— protesting for Extinction Rebellion

My week...
Gail Bradbrook
Gail Bradbrook4 September 2020

As co-founder of Extinction Rebellion I’ve learned protests are full of unexpected people in unexpected places. A doctor whose other hand is glued on to the main entrance to Parliament. A plumber and a gardener up a tree in Parliament Square. A former banker on a plinth outside Tufton Street, exposing the home of many lobbyists who buy delays to climate action. Everyone’s welcome. Even you, Boris.

Tears have flown on more than one occasion. Once at Defra, where people locked themselves to “bleeding” chunks of an ancient tree — one of countless felled for HS2. And twice at Tufton Street, where Mark Rylance, Juliet Stevenson and Zadie Smith called out the spread of climate doubt on behalf of Writers Rebel. A poem read by Jay Griffiths, Endlings, gave emotional colour to the reality our slow creep on the living world is causing — the last life of a species before extinction. My whole body was shaking, and not from the rain gently soaking us all.

We were outside the Department for Transport, protesting its £27billion road-building programme — which would scupper our climate commitments — and the racist pollution impact of Silvertown Tunnel. Last time I was there I got a leggy up onto the top of revolving doors and I had a go at what Emmeline Pankhurst called “the noble art of window smashing”. Not so easy in the days of bulletproof glass. I noticed they’ve put spikes on the roof now. That’s six months to a year in jail I might be in for, by the way. I wonder what you’d get for breaking air pollution laws three times, killing 40,000 a year?

It seems like the police are struggling to contain us. We’re popping up like mushrooms and moving on. Anyway, I reckon they struggle to collect intelligence on us because we don’t know what the f***’s going on half the time! That’s the beauty of this movement: everyone contributes how they see fit, so long as it’s peaceful, and in line with our principles.

Suddenly I was in a swarm of cyclists pedalling friendly mischief in the city

Just having left an impromptu roadblock on Millbank, I found myself yesterday suddenly among a swarm of cyclists pedalling friendly mischief around the city. There’s something about the spirit of this rebellion. When people join together in courage and love for life on earth, willing to take the punishment that will come, the system doesn’t know how to handle it. The Government itself declared a climate and ecological emergency last year, but little more than lip service has followed. On Tuesday, together with environmental organisations, academics, lawyers, and now more than 30 MPs from seven parties, we handed to Parliament on a plate a Bill fit to address the crisis. All they need to do is pass it — and all we need to do is tell them we want it.

We're disrupting the public less this time than last. Of course, I’d prefer to not have to at all, and I do mean it when I say sorry to those who get caught up in it. I know many of them, understand and empathise, for the same reason that I’m here on the streets — the future of our kids. Mine have gone back to school this week. We do this for them and future generations. They’ve been asked to give up so much in their lives in the last few months to keep us safe. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do the same for them?