State Repression

NOTE: This Strategy has been replaced at the end of February 2024 by the new Actions Strategy- Pathway to Rebellion. This resource will be maintained for a little while for those who need it but will eventually be moved to the archive.

THE PUBLIC ORDER ACT, POLICE, CRIME, SENTENCING & COURTS ACT AND MORE.
The state has increased its powers to prevent protest, as predicted when Extinction Rebellion was founded. This is part of the process of change. Now is not the moment to turn back. Today's laws are likely to be more lenient than tomorrow’s and our inaction at this shifting picture brings greater risks of intensified attacks on protest and repression of dissidents.

There is greater public awareness around the criminalisation of protest and free speech, the too often violent and lawless behaviour of the police, especially towards Black, Indigenous, People of colour, women, disabled people, Roma and Travellers and the LGBTQ+ community. More people acknowledge the corrupting influence of money in politics and policing.

Clever and satirical action designs will deepen public sympathy, while creating opportunities for state overreach. That might provoke outrage and even bring the wider public closer to rebellion.

The goal of resistance for as long as it takes in 2024 now involves higher risk than it did only recently. Local alliance-building and recruitment of rebels ready to stay in the face of increased repression is vital to our success.

There is still great privilege and responsibility that comes from living in the United Kingdom, where most of us do not yet face batons and water cannons at protests and picket lines and where so much of the historical and colonial legacy of the crises we face were made and enshrined in our laws.

Let us prepare for the right moment, which we will decide together.