Skip to main content
From Extinction Rebellion to revolution: strategies compared
NICK WRIGHT assesses the programme and demands of the burgeoning ecological direct-action movement
An Extinction Rebellion protester eyes up a cop outside the Bank of England

EXTINCTION Rebellion (XR) has put environment politics in the popular imagination with a partisan spirit and the kind of creativity that inspires admiration.

Its daring tactics have wrong-footed political authority and the bourgeois media as well as giving the public-order police a more entertaining job than normal.

While the exotic behaviour of some XR activists gives Daily Mail editors apoplexy, the more common — and common sense — reaction from most people is to enjoy the anti-authoritarian exuberance in the same spirit that put-upon peasants and inebriated artisans in feudal Britain revelled in subverting authority when a successful armed rebellion seemed impossibly remote.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Immigration / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all 

ANGER GROWS: Protesters demonstrate in Dover against migrant
Features / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
The left must confront both far-right bigotry and the undeniable problems the exploitation of migrant workers by the ruling class creates — but there are few lessons from the global left on how to strike this balance, laments NICK WRIGHT
FACING THE RIGHT:
Anti-racist protesters
in Walthamstow, 202
Features / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
Xenophobic hysteria over the statistically insignificant number of small-boat crossings deliberately conceals how capitalism manipulates population flows for profit — if we can explain that, we’ll beat the right, argues NICK WRIGHT
PREMONITION OF DISASTER: Anonymous photographer, Fallen Stat
Book Review / 18 March 2025
18 March 2025
NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly
Similar stories
Activists participate in a demonstration for phasing out fos
Features / 20 November 2024
20 November 2024
TOM HARDY traces how these climate conferences have been captured by fossil fuel interests while CO₂ levels have continued to rise since 1995 — but XR’s citizen assemblies and direct action have offered an alternative
ACTION: A Fossil Free London activist disrupts the 2023 Shel
Features / 9 November 2024
9 November 2024
As a new report reveals how dire the climate situation is now, other recent research demonstrates how activism – namely Extinction Rebellion and the school strikes – has already forced governments into action, writes IAN SINCLAIR
Just Stop Oil protesters take part in a walking protest bloc
Features / 24 August 2024
24 August 2024
Social scientist DANA R FISHER speaks to Ian Sinclair about the efficacy of disruptive actions carried out by groups such as Just Stop Oil, the conditions that might generate a truly mass climate mobilisation, and what a win for Kamala Harris in the upcoming US presidential election would mean