Extinction Rebellion cannot go “beyond politics”

The movement fighting the impending climate crisis will make no progress without becoming explicitly political

Extinction Rebellion protestors in London

A movement needs a target. Extinction Rebellion (XR) seems to be confused about that.

They have a target. Extinction Rebellion intends to go after, in its own words, “Government”. They believe “Government” has created the climate crisis, that the failures of “Government” are the reason Earth is facing a new major extinction even, and “Government” is the body that owes us a solution.

How does XR intend to defeat “Government”, then?

Through an “apolitical international network”.

Right…

Anyone with half a brain can see why that’s not going to work. Just read the page XR has put up listing its demands, including the declaration of a “climate and ecological emergency”, a halt on “biodiversity loss” and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025, and the creation of a “Citizen’s Assembly” to lead the way in creating “climate and ecological justice”.

Apart from the first of their goals (declaring an emergency has in practice shown itself to be meaningless), these are rather lofty ambitions. “Government” is indeed the body best equipped to meet these requests.

Problem is, XR doesn’t want to get involved in “Government.” Politics is beneath them. Their intention is to create a mass movement that stays outside the traditional halls of power.

That’s why, when an affiliate of the Left Culture Club attempted to start a “socialist subgroup” within XR, it was quickly shut down. Writing in Current Affairs, Erica Eisen says a spokesperson from the XR central media team said they require the “cooperation of big business” to save the world from climate change.

The leaders of XR believe in going “beyond politics”, but there is no such thing. Climate change is a political issue. In fact, trying to be “beyond politics” will kill any chances of XR achieving its goals.

For one, the group’s leaders want to make friends with their enemies. If your ecological movement is friendly with big business, chances are you’re running something impotent. Forget talk of a revolution (even the “Compassionate Revolution” their website speaks about), this isn’t even a rebellion. Real ecological movements challenge big business head-on, out of necessity. It’s the only way to scare the people that are creating the climate crisis in the first place.

I won’t dignify XR’s leaders by calling them naïve — this is plain idiocy. These people are politically incompetent. Reaching out ‘across the aisle’ to your opponents to make a pact between you both is a charming concept, often idealised in the West, but more often than not it means selling out your principles for show. To get big business on side, XR has to abandon all hope of serious systemic change, the kind we require; the kind they’re demanding.

You can’t fix our climate problem by making friends with the culprits.

XR has to be bold, like Bernie Sanders. Over the course of his 2020 Presidential campaign, Sanders has called for fossil fuel executives to be “criminally prosecuted” for their crimes against our planet. Rather than step back to make them feel comfortable, he has been clear. “There is no such thing as ‘clean coal’. There is no such thing as ‘sustainably fracked natural gas”, he has stated.

Imagine XR putting that out there? Imagine then waving it in the faces of the companies they want to get on-side.

You can’t see it. You can’t see it, because they’ll never do it. They’ll never do it because these people are cowards. There is not one person among the XR leadership as brave as Sanders.

Which brings us to the second problem facing XR — as long as they shut down socialists groups within their organisation, they will never be radical. And as long as they allow other political groups to flourish, they will be further held back from taking action.

Take XR Landlords, for one. As the name suggests, it’s an XR subgroup just for landlords, claiming it “accepts the challenges facing future generations” and “seek[s] to protect them.”

XR Landlords is a political group. Not on the surface, of course. That would violate the standards that the socialist group broke. Instead, XR Landlords is subtly, implicitly political.

A group of landlords has a key common interest. Property. They all own private property, they all have tenants, they all make their living threatening people with eviction if they don’t get paid. Thus, they will push XR at large to support keeping private property intact. XR was never about to around burning down houses in protest or anything, but with landlords free to organise in their midst, anger will never be directed at the private property of those guilty of creating the climate crisis.

We’ve already seen what this does. XR protestors did more than hold up the Tube in London, putting working-class commuters under a whole new load of stress, they also held up rush-hour traffic in Edmonton, Canada, and again faced public opposition.

With socialist influence, they might have gone after the people creating the crisis. Instead, influenced by landlords, XR has succeeded only in pissing off a load of innocent people. So how, exactly, does that help?

It doesn’t, and even XR admits these antics were “a mistake”.

But don’t expect them to change. Groups like XR Landlords will stay quiet about their politics, and continue to drive XR away from their rebellion.

You can’t go “beyond politics.” You can’t change “government” without playing the appalling political game.

That isn’t a nice fact, but it is true. It’s a truth XR needs to take in and apply moving forward if they want to save the planet.

They have a noble goal, and I wish them all the best. None of XR’s left-wing critics want it to fail. We do, however, recognise the gaping flaws in the design of their movement.

Politics is sadly necessary. The “beyond politics” line is reminiscent of global warming sceptics trying to ‘keep politics out of science’, believing the cause against global warming to be some kind of plot to destroy the greatness of the West. Scientists have to be political. They need to argue for policies that can save us. The same is true of XR, and any group like it.

Disrupting poor people’s commutes, or dancing in Trafalgar Square, spraying fake blood (or rather, failing to spray fake blood) on the Treasury building, and putting red handprints everywhere and handing yourself in to the police, is futile action. It won’t save the world.

Do you know the one country in the world that even comes close to meeting sustainable development standards?

It’s Cuba.

Tiny, poor, socialist Cuba, is doing better than America, the UK, Russia, China, Germany, India, and any other bigger, richer, more powerful country on Earth.

Socialism ended the need for hyperproduction of goods. It ended the sale of land for no good reason. It brought people closer to the second part of Marx’s famous principle — to each according to their need.

To their need, not their want. Nor to what they are told they want.

Socialism was the fix. Far from a perfect fix, but better than anything XR has done or ever will do.

You can’t go “beyond politics.” XR needs to give up this absurd aim. Play the game, or resign yourself to a long and fruitless campaign.