The Conquest of Westminster: Two Weeks with Extinction Rebellion

Welcome to the Party at the End of the World.

This is a diary of one person’s fortnight with Extinction Rebellion. As a writer and sometime climate activist, I’ve been attending Extinction Rebellion (‘XR’) events since a month after the group’s foundation. In Australia I worked in the Extinction Rebellion media team, but for the worldwide October Uprising, I was in London, and so it was the London revolt I joined.

I spent a long time hesitating over whether I should get myself arrested. Ultimately I did not, because I had some serious creative deadlines of my own, and because I am a coward. As an Australian abroad, I was also not part of a London ‘affinity group’, and I’ll confess I found it hard to make more than fleeting friends during the protests. This, then, is something of a sympathetic outsider portrait of one the strangest and serious movements of our era.

Friday 4th October

Whispers of Revolt

In Stoke Newington, the Extinction Rebellion hourglass flag fluttered proudly from the roof of the church at the end of my street. Extinction Rebellion may not have conquered the world yet, but it has a pretty good hold on East London.