Extinction Rebellion looks set to heap yet more misery on the British public by today announcing plans to block major UK oil refineries and attempt to bring London to a standstill once again.
The campaign group said it intends to ‘stop the harm at the source’ as part of its campaign to force the Government to stop the fossil fuel economy. They’ll be joined by Just Stop Oil and a number of other groups, who are yet to be confirmed.
From April 9, it will then ‘flood’ the capital with activists and ‘create the most roadblocks we ever have’, with the eco mob vowing to be ‘disruptive and impossible to ignore’.
Extinction Rebellion demonstration outside The Bank of England in September. The group today announced plans to block oil refineries in April
British Olympians Laura Baldwin and Etienne Stott outside ExxonMobil’s Fawley Oil terminal, in Hampshire last October
October’s protest saw XR protesters manage to break into ExxonMobil’s Fawley Oil terminal
The action coincides with the price of a barrel of oil hitting $125, as Britain joined the US in boycotting supplies from Russia in a bid to halt the $100billion in fossil fuel revenues believed to be flowing to the Kremlin every month.
Today the RAC Foundation warned petrol prices could rise to an average of £1.60 a litre this week in the UK and £1.65 soon – but some petrol stations are already charging £1.89 a litre with £2 expected in days.
Extinction Rebellion’s announcement this morning will also be grim news for Londoners braced for yet more transport chaos after previous protests caused massive disruption.
The group first revealed its plans for protests this April in a press release last year, vowing to mobilise two million protestors to launch what it says will be ‘the largest act of civil resistance in UK history’.
XR said that the number of activists taking part in their demonstrations had dwindled during the pandemic but that they hoped to rely on record numbers in 2022.
Starting from Monday April 15, 2019, Extinction Rebellion organised several disruptive demonstrations in London targeting popular areas including Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge.
A garage just off the A1, near Peterborough (left), and petrol prices in Glasgow today (right), are already pushing upwards way above the average
The price of a barrel of oil is spiking upwards and is expected to get worse as the US pushes for a global ban on buying Russian oil
As well as disrupting commuters on the roads, activists caused severe delays on the transport network by gluing themselves to trains.
The April demonstrations, which also saw the group target Heathrow airport, resulted in more than 1,000 people arrested and the disruption was to continue throughout the year.
In October 2019, XR launched a two-week series of actions they called ‘International Rebellion’ which took place in 60 cities worldwide.
In London, this included protests which saw several thousand people shut down parts of Westminster, blocking Whitehall, the Mall, Westminster Bridge, Lambeth Bridge, Trafalgar Square, Downing Street and Victoria Embankment.
They also used a fire engine to spray fake blood onto and around the Treasury.
The group said it hoped to build on their disruptive protests of 2019 (pictured) but on a larger scale to bring about change
Protester Diana Warner glues her hand to a train as demonstrators block traffic at Canary Wharf Station during the Extinction Rebellion protest in London, Britain April 25, 2019
Clare Farrell, Extinction Rebellion co-founder, said today: ‘Oil refineries are symbolic of continued extraction and profit for a small group of very wealthy companies at the expense of everyone else.
‘We burn them, pollute our cities, poison ourselves and our children whilst committing to climate breakdown. It’s no wonder the entire environmental movement is focusing on ending fossil fuels and the death they cause. The writing is on the wall, and we are out of time.
‘We face an ongoing cost of living crisis with fossil fuel companies making record-breaking massive profits.
‘We have failed to insulate homes or make progress on energy efficiency here in the UK and experts are expecting an especially difficult winter later this year unless bold effort is made in the name of protecting the vulnerable and the poor.
‘Boris Johnson arguing for a ‘climate change pass’ involving new fossil fuel development sidelines the decades of failure to prevent millions of deaths from pollution and climate breakdown by building in decades more failure and more millions of deaths. We need to decarbonise and to do so as fast as possible.’
Extinction Rebellion climate change protesters block the road in the City of London in 2019
During their October campaign, Extinction Rebellion protesters spray fake blood on Treasury
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10593833/Extinction-Rebellion-announces-plans-block-major-UK-oil-refineries.html
