Eco Extremists Insulate Britain Call for Johnson to Be Tried for Treason

Insulate Britain 8th October 2021
Insulate Britain
Victoria Friedman

Insulate Britain has claimed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson should be tried for treason for not reducing carbon emissions, with an insider from the eco-extremist group saying the are desperate to go to jail because they think it will force the government to change environmental laws.

The Extinction Rebellion (XR) offshoot blocked Britain’s roads for the twelfth day in recent weeks on Friday, this time taking over Old Street roundabout in central London during rush hour and returning to the M25, despite injunctions against protests on the busy motorway.

Tracey Mallagan from Insulate Britain claimed that unless the government did not act immediately to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions, there would be anarchy on the streets and not enough people to bury the dead.

Ms Mallagan said according to a statement on the group’s website: “If governments don’t act soon to reduce emissions, we face a terrifying situation.

“We won’t be worrying about shortages of pasta or loo rolls because law and order breaks down pretty quickly when there is not enough food to go round.

“The government won’t be wondering if there are enough hospital beds or ventilators, but whether there are enough people left to bury the dead.

“The government is destroying our country. Boris Johnson should be taken to court for treason. Our flesh and blood are being tossed aside as expendable.”

Insulate Britain activists continue to defy court injunctions against them from blocking the M25, reportedly because they want to become martyrs for their cause by being arrested and imprisoned.

One group insider speaking to The Times on Friday said: “We are not trying to avoid these injunctions, we actively want to go to prison.”

The insider claimed: “It’s the only way to make the government listen if there are hundreds of peaceful people sent to jail for what they believe in.”

Mass imprisonment of protesters appears to be an aim coming right from the extremists at the top of the organisation.

A profile by The Times last month described Insulate Britain as being a splinter group of Extinction Rebellion (XR) which since 2019 has been blocking traffic in central London. Insulate Britain has reportedly been formed by former members of XR who thought Extinction Rebellion did not go far enough, with an insider calling Insulate Britain a “radical flank to XR”.

XR had reportedly distanced itself from co-founder Roger Hallam after the 55-year-old Welsh organic farmer had in 2019 called the Holocaust “just another fuckery in human history”. But the eco-activist went on to help establish Insulate Britain, which is pressuring the government to commit to applying green retrofits to all British homes by 2030, telling members earlier this year that activism had to turn towards “material resistance”.

Criticising his former group, he said, according to the newspaper of record: “Going to a bank and smashing windows [as XR have done] is not material resistance. It’s symbolic and it’s not going to change anything.

“What will change things is if fuel supplies stop, or people can’t get to work in the mornings.”

Claiming: “We have an absolute responsibility to go further. Five hundred people in prison will produce legislative change.”

Insulate Britain, particularly its spokesman Liam Norton, has been criticised for its cold response to the prospect that its protests may cause injury or death to those stuck in traffic, with Norton appearing to compare the loss of life to World War Two-era collateral damage.

Brexit leader Nigel Farage has compared the group to “terrorists”, with even Labour’s Khalid Mahmood questioning whether the group manages to avoid getting treated as extremists because they’re mostly white and middle-class.

The think tank Policy Exchange report on Extinction Rebellion had warned that the leadership’s agenda was “rooted in the political extremism of anarchism, eco-socialism and radical anti-capitalist environmentalism”. Policy Exchange quoted Hallam in a speech he had given in 2019, where he said that “some may die in the process” of XR’s activism.

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