Extinction Rebellion posted a long and grovelling apology on its London branch Facebook page on Thursday morning before deleting it.

It read:

To Londoners, ordinary commuters, working class citizens, black people, minority communities, humans of all ages. Please read.

You may have already heard: Extinction Rebellion activists took to the Tube and blocked Shadwell and Canning Town this morning in an effort to cause mass disruption and raise public awareness about the climate and ecological emergency.

Firstly, we would like to sincerely apologise for the delay it took to formulate a proper response to this action.

XR press and PR channels are still formulating an official statement that will deal with this incident in its entirety but for the sake of being transparent, we feel that we should address this issue now.

We recognise that this action unnecessarily targets ordinary commuters and disrupts London transport - which is an eco-friendly way to travel.

Though the affinity group (AG) organising this received feedback that majority of rebels within our movement felt as if this action sent the wrong message, our decentralised structure means that AGs are able to act autonomously and make tactical decisions to carry out actions independently.

Having said that, our structure of decentralisation is no excuse for how poorly we, as environmentalists acting on behalf of life, acting this morning.

We did not have open dialogues about the nature of this action.

Shadwell and Canning Town are areas of London with largely working class and highly ethnic populations.

We acknowledge that these are communities who stand to be most affected by the climate crisis and are most vulnerable to systems of power.

In light of this morning's Tube action, Extinction Rebellion London will take this opportunity to reflect with humility how we can improve in the future...

...Extinction Rebellion's core principles include non-violence, and we aim to create safe and accessible spaces.

The systematic change we are fighting for does not include interrupting and threatening people's livelihoods.

Unfortunately, the nature of the organisation means that actions can go ahead without the full support of everybody within XR.

The violence seen at the stations today was heartbreaking to see, and is not something we want to be tied to [us] as an organisation.

Our principles also include the value we place on reflecting and learning, and we would like to take this time to say that this what we will focus on following this morning.

Today's action was a learning experience for Extinction Rebellion as an organisation.

Although we are pushing for disruption and civil disobedience, we are still learning how to do this in a way that does not result in violence, and that does not discriminate against hard-working individuals.