The group wearing hi-vis vests gathered on a grassy hillock beside the busy M25 were looking uncertain. Faltering even, as they looked upon their brave and fearless commander. Courage and fearlessness being relative, in this case his courage and fearlessness just about exceeding that of a fat 14-year-old high-school bully. Encircled among his devoted followers he began rambling about the plan. The Plan. Of course, they had discussed it the night before, but a last minute regroup before things kick into gear is always useful, especially with the battlefield under your feet.
“We’ve been through this already.”
A melange of facial expressions, some saying “What the fuck is he talking about”, others saying “I vaguely remember but I zoned out” and a good bunch of them with the wild-eyed fanatical zeal conveying that they were riding elegantly on every word that flowed out of his mouth.
“On the count of three we jump over the barrier and run out onto the road.” Pointing towards the blistering blur of traffic that’s shooting past them like one undisturbed mass of speed as he says that last bit like it’s the most reasonable thing to come out of a sane person’s mouth. “It’s simple really. I don’t see why I have to go over this again.”
The eyes of his acolytes follow the path of his finger, out onto the motorway. Heavy gulps of consternation emerge from throats as some try to swallow their Adam’s apples. While from others who were either born without any self-preservation or through years of carelessness and thrill-seeking have zapped out that one vital neural pathway with ensures that feeling of wanting to keep yourself alive actually registers in the brain, come cheers of demented determination. The excitement is so much for them that they can’t control the drool slipping like a silver string from the side of their mouths, glistening in the late-morning sun.
“Get ready everyone! This is the big moment we’ve been waiting for.” The commander unzips his bag and starts handing everyone red and blue flags.
“3…2……”
Flags are being clutched tightly by tremulous hands.
“…..1!”
Like a gun going off that no one heard, everyone hops over the fence like soldiers going over the top of a trench and spill out onto the dense undulating highway, amidst a sea of moving cars.
The doppler of cars zooming past immediately cuts into a discordant cacophony of loud horns blaring, like a cat running over the keys of a piano which produce the most ear-splitting scream of a horn from every car possible, and the towering whine of tyres screeching as they come to a burning halt.
Then like a gross flower emerging from shit-soil, the whole thing blossomed into something ugly.
It was a Monday afternoon on the 20th of September when I was on my way to work. I had just finished reading The Age of Reason and had run out of reading material for my journey to work when I picked up a copy of that day’s Evening Standard all crumpled up and folded on a seat just an arm’s length from mine. I was quite bored and left in a state of existential dissociation so this newspaper was a serendipitous find because I desperately needed something to bring me back down to this planet or else I’d be floating in a magnificent cloud of random thoughts for the rest of the evening. A cursory flick of the pages landed me on a small story barely taking up half a page, bearing a title with such absurdity that I was already half a paragraph in before the headline finished its passage through my eyes.
Activists glue themselves to road in fourth protest on M25
“What in the screaming fuck?” I say while chuckling and tossing the paper aside after reading it, satisfied that what I read was enough idiocy to slide me back into the normalcy of planet Earth.
It wasn’t until the story germinated in the next day’s papers that I began to sniff some potential. Potent dizzying stupidity. A failure of reason and from the vacuum coming forth some of that beautifully surreal nonsense that I yearn for on this rock. People running out into oncoming traffic, gluing themselves onto the road and sitting right in the middle of the busiest motorway in London, spilling paint onto it and screaming some half-constructed demand that the government should insulate all the homes in Britain by 2030, right before the police drag them off the road only for them to run right back onto it again.
A spectacular scene as far as my wobbly imagination can conjure up, but I don’t have to, because these fuckers are doing it all for me. It’s taken care of itself already; all I have to do is type up this gibberish and deliver the facts. Oh yes, the facts. That word which every self-respecting journalist worships like an idol of black gold. Good thing I have no use for false idols.
Part I. Scrape Their Remains Off The Road.
It’s hard to concentrate and tell a story straight when such rich music is filling the air and taking over you but I’ll do my best. Those nigh-suicidal freaks that are throwing themselves onto the highway like a stop sign on legs are all with a group that go by the rather unimaginative name of Insulate Britain, and they have one goal and one only, to get the British government to insulate all social housing in the country by 2025 and then the rest of them by 2030. Their wording and demeanour suggests that they want to put it on the government tab, which by proxy means the taxpayers tab. Drop all responsibility of this task on the big-wigs in the government, maybe if you push them enough they’ll yield. Their motivations are environmental and humanitarian. Insulated houses mean less heating required which in turn means less carbon emissions. And that comes with the added benefit of the destitute not freezing to death in the winter. Then that rolls onto their secondary demand, though not in any way inferior to the first, no sir, to decarbonise all parts of society and the economy by 2030. Sounds like a reasonable thing to me. Makes me want to shoot out of my chair and shout one great Hallelujah. How are they going about doing that however? Rolling the dice on their own lives and throwing themselves into oncoming traffic on the busiest artery that keeps the blood flowing in and out of London, then sitting down and getting in the way like some fatal blood clot.
Their protests have been targeting the M25 which is this behemoth of an orbital motorway which encircles the entirety of Greater London like a ring of fantastic asphalt. If you want to get in or out of London by road, you go through there. It doesn’t take more than half a thought to drag out the inane foolishness of their endeavour into the naked light. Firstly, blocking a busy motorway and the insulation of houses has absolutely nothing in common to suggest that the group is protesting for insulation. There’s no symbolism to their actions. From a distance one would take these fools for crazed protestors who are taking their disgruntlement out on the transport system or some other sector that handles the roadworks. Secondly, it seems the backhanded effects of their actions have completely eluded them, because thousands of cars piled up, bumper to bumper, on top of each other sputtering smoke into the air while a bunch of clowns block their passage goes completely against their cursed prohibition of carbon emissions. Thirdly, as I’ve already no doubt mentioned that they want to drop the bill for insulation on the governments tab, which means that it’ll come out partly out of the treasury and largely out of taxpayer money. It sounds like they haven’t asked themselves the question that if people could afford to insulate their own homes, wouldn’t they have done that already? What they’re after here is making people who can’t afford to insulate their own homes, pay taxes to insulate other people’s homes. And what will someone else skip out on insulating their home so they can pay for the sucker who is already paying to insulate someone else’s? I can imagine this cycle play out for a very long time until we land on the poor bastard who doesn’t get his house insulated because he spent his taxes on the one who came before him. No more tax to go around I’m afraid, now if you’ll kindly freeze to death that would be great so we can demolish your home to make way for a lemonade stand. Already some prima facie evidence that what we’re dealing with here isn’t a group of people who have put much thought in their scheme. A cavalcade of amateurs who have managed to get their foot into the door of something big. But hey, I should probably give them the benefit of the doubt, right? Maybe there’s more to them than their pea-brained exterior. I’d wish that were the truth, but the more this story unfurls, the louder the horrendous call of the straight jacket and padded cell for them becomes.
This circus rolled into town on September 13th. Their first protest on this stretch of road begins with small fry, blocking off junctions which lead onto the main nerve of the stream itself. They decide to go for junctions 3, 6, 14, 20, and 21. Their routine has become quite familiar by now; run into traffic, stop them, sit down, hold up your red and blue “Insulate Britain” flag and start screaming. Bonus points for those who spill red and blue paint onto the road.
I feel truly sorry for the poor bastard who pulls the short straw and has to clean up the paint from the road. They’d have to wait until the road is empty at night and jump out of the way of oncoming midnight drivers while they wash off the paint with high-pressured water hoses that would blast a clean hole in anyone within reach, or they’d have to close that part of the highway down to clean it up – but that seems unlikely with the traffic that rolls on that road day and night. Maybe we’ll just have to live with scars these assholes have left on that sacred road. Possibly the only bit of planning they’ve done, which seems pretty inadvertent.
On September 17th came the second one where they block off junctions 3, 9 and 28.
Continuing this nuisance on September 20th their demonstrations clog up junction 28 of the M25 and junction 4 of the A1(M) – another major motorway which leads out of London and connects to a huge length of road taking motorists all the way up to Edinburgh. The police quickly take notice of this and head down there. Seeing this sordid sight of a bunch of people in high-vis vests sitting around on a paint splattered motorway and manifesting themselves into a migraine for the rest of the people was enough to shake them into action and start dragging these idiots off the road. Officers walk up to the protestors and look down at them.
“Just what do you think you’re doing here?”
“This doesn’t concern you! We’re saving the planet here. Many will die if you stop us.” Says one bedraggled looking youth with rectangular glasses and huge protruding teeth.
“Do you see all the mess you’re making here son?” asks the officer in an almost genial tone.
“Can’t you see the mess the government has left for us to clean up?” growls the young man, glasses slipping down his nose.
“Alright that’s enough of that, come with me. People need to get to work.”
“NO!”
“Listen mate. You can either come with me yourself or I can take you with me.”
A blank and obstinate face looks back at the officer with determination.
No other avenue out of here, the officer lays a hand on the young protestor and begins to drag him off. “NO!” he screams again, his scream turning into a wild whine and a cry as his body goes limp under the hands of the policeman dragging him across the width of the highway back onto the grassy side.
“People will die because of you!” cries the protestor as the officer drops him on the grass.
Ignoring this madman’s babbling the policemen turns around to drag the others off the road but on his way there he sees a lime green blur swish past him which ends in the shape of the very same body he just dragged off the highway sitting back down defiantly in front of the officer. At this point the policeman really wished he had a service issue gun on him which he could wave around and even crack off a few shots in the air to disperse this crowd, but all he had on his belt was a walkie talkie. Three is better than one he thinks and calls for more officers. With more hands-on deck, they begin dragging these fools off the highway, once by their arms, then by their heels after they run back and assume their places and then by their necks and into the back of their car for those defiant enough to test their patience. At the end of it all they finally cleared the highway with a bunch of arrests made and the traffic flowing freely again but with a sickening lurch of anger with all the time lost out of these peoples lives.
Feeling confident and not at all deterred by the peevishness of the police, they up the ante and swing the knife straight for the femoral artery, blocking the main carriageway of the M25 in both directions between junction 9 and 10. Traffic begins to build, the air oscillates with the sound of horns and the global temperature rises by 0.01 degrees from the combined rage of the drivers stuck in traffic. A hellish scene straight out of Inferno is bought to a tempering display while these fools parade themselves in the middle of the M25 and shout their gibberish to angry motorists who care little for the words coming out of their mouths. Once the word reaches the authorities, they feel insulted. This is an affront too flagrant to ignore. They band up and drive immediately down to the site of the clot. This time they’re no longer asking protestors nicely to make themselves scarce, but are demanding and if the words don’t go through, they scrape them off the asphalt and hurl them in the back with cuffs on their hands. 38 people are arrested for charges ranging from criminal damage, public nuisance, wilful obstruction of the highway to causing danger to motorists.
People change when they’re behind the wheel. It’s not obvious at first and the effects only show themselves once powerful emotions like anger or lust take over. Something about being behind the wheel, perhaps the feel of the steering, the sense of control over this oversized bullet which can achieve high speeds on long stretches of road or maybe just the precarity of life hanging on the edge of a freak accident which could occur at any moment, which turns these potent emotions into something violent and aggressive. All it takes is something as brief as a careless driver swerving past you or a foolish pedestrian who runs across the road for the senses of the driver to be shanghaied by rage and excitement. Sharp abuse from the foulest pits of the driver’s language is screamed forth at this fucking cunt who shouldn’t be allowed on the road in the first place, while the swear canon of a driver begins punching his horn and kicking the accelerator pedal sending the car into the same spasms of apoplexy. And no more than a moment later it’s all over. It’s all forgotten about and they continue as if the sheer surge of rage burnt all memory of this hideous incident to a crisp. A truly marvellous sight it is to be in the passenger seat next to a driver who is in the throes of road rage. If we still lived in simpler times, we’d just blame this behaviour on abrupt possession by some sort of vengeful spirit who is the personification of all who have met their end under the wheels of a car.
Now imagine a motorist is driving down the M25, on their way someplace, in a hurry, some preoccupation waiting for them. The further down the motorway they drive, the denser the traffic becomes and that faint discordant rhythm of honking horns becomes louder. Before long there is no more movement, no more space. The hood of the car right up against the bumper of the one in front, like a long line of dogs sniffing each other’s asses. Perplexity takes over the mind as no cogent thought can get through this disorienting noise that’s pounding like a sledgehammer against the wall right outside the car. Fingers start drumming the steering wheel, feet tap faster and faster upon the floor matt with the engine still running in the hopes that this traffic jam will clear any minute now… any minute we’ll be moving again… what the fuck is taking so long? I’m supposed to be at the office in 5 minutes, that bastard of a manager will fire me for sure if I’m late again this week. Confusion turns into impatience then into fear and then into rage. A nightmare indeed. With a red mist in front of the eyes and hair singed at the ends, they roll down the window to make some sense of what’s happening here. This messy procession of twisted metal continues on for about a mile down the road, compacted into a singularity right at the very front with a clearing of people milling around right in front of it. The motorist looks right to grab the attention of an equally exasperated looking driver with their head in their hands.
“What the hell is happening up there?” our eyes in this horrid scenario asks.
“Some sort of fucking protest. I thought it was an accident or the road was closed but I walked up there a while ago and it’s just a bunch of cunts chanting and laying down in the road.” The guy seems to reignite with anger at the grim recollection of the reason they’re trapped there.
“What?!” The timbre of his growl said more than the word; it said, “Is this is the bullshit I’ll get fired for?!”
Taking matters into his own hands against odds too great for him, he gets out of his car and sets out on a stroll through the line of cars, across this pressure cooker of madness.
He is among the many people who have abandoned their cars in a prolonged attack of road rage to go have a few stiff words with the bastards who are responsible for this.
One prospective motorist summed it up quite well in a way that flew in the face of the very purpose their time was being wasted for, “You’re causing more pollution with these cars sitting here doing fuck all.”
One of the protests on the M25 blocked a junction on the way to Stanstead Airport. Nothing gets people in a frenzied hurry like a plane to catch. Families whistling down the motorway, constantly glancing at their watch to see whether they have enough time to get through security and sprint towards the terminal when all of a sudden, they have to pull the breaks in the midst of a violent traffic jam because some hi-vis vest wearing waterheads have decided to take a nap on the road. I can imagine myself possessed by the most virulent sort of anger and I’ll end up doing or saying things too hideous for print.
Worse than that are the people who missed urgent doctors and hospital appointments, vital lifesaving ones which they’ve waited months for through a healthcare system under tremendous pressure due to COVID. A certain maddening scene was captured on LBC News – a local news radio station – of an interview with one of the Insulate Britain organisers after their third protest which took place on September 20th.
The host Andrew Pierce is not hiding his indignation one bit against the bespectacled, porridge faced lady of middle-age called Tracey Mallaghan. He reveals to her that many people were unable to make it to their cancer and dialysis appointments which they’ve waited for months to secure and will have to wait an even longer time before the next slot opens up for them, in a voice which sounds like that she should be thankful they’re conversing over a video call or else he would’ve reached over the desk and strangled her. In a very vehement interrogative, he asks if she feels at all guilty about this. Her reaction is as much as one can expect from someone who’s been handed their torn-up ass to them in an interview. Her head bobs back and forth in affirmative and she finally utters a word and says that she indeed is very heartbroken. She doesn’t even get to finish her pathetic reply before Andrew Pierce hits her with the backhand of, “Clearly you don’t feel guilty enough to stop what you’re doing.” Then he asks her a question which she is completely unable to reply to, “What would you do if it was your mother who missed a health appointment?” At this point Tracey descends into a shaking babble about some nonsense to do with “the bigger picture” and how “thousands of people die every year because they have to choose between heating and eating.”
The clip ended at that point and I’m all the more thankful for it because it started to give me a dizzying headache. Such inane nonsense coming out of the mouth of someone is too much for me to endure. For an environment group who are protesting against for the government to change their ways in order to preserve the planet, these weird fuckers have a strangely solipsistic way of operating. Let’s hold Tracey’s parting words to a bit of scrutiny, shall we? What bigger picture is she jabbering about? The planet? Sure. But those who are dying, those who must live from one day to the next, walking in and out of doctor’s appointments and therapy, living on borrowed time, uncomfortably close to the darkness, there is no such thing as the bigger picture. Everyone is too afraid of their own death, especially when it’s hanging over you, to care about anything outside of that. After enough exhaustion or acceptance, whichever one comes first, one makes the next best thing to peace with it and disappear from the universe.
The manner in which Tracey composed herself when swung with a question she couldn’t evade is quite characteristic to other Insulate Britain organisers and spokespeople, as will become clear in this preternatural display of idiocy when we deal with more of them later on. Their ears refuse to carry the vibrations of that question to their brain and tune it out completely. The answer which emerges in tentative utterances in response to that seems almost as if they’re answering a completely different question that no one asked or heard. And if not dodging the question completely, they’ll only half answer it – which is still not at all – by bringing up something that’s only vaguely related to what they were asked in such a tenuous way that no perpendiculars can be drawn between those parallels.
Part II. Guilty By Association. “The Unhallowed Horror…” They’re Listening but They Just Don’t Care Brother.
Every newspaper and online article which ran the Insulate Britain story in those early days of this wretched phenomenon, never failed to mention that this group is “an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion”. Even after they had made that point, they kept on drawing that connection between Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain rather obsessively. This almost sounds like they’re implicitly saying, “Remember those pain in the backsides? These new pain in the backsides actually crawled out of the same scum-ridden hole those guys did.”
Because it’s no secret that Extinction Rebellion aren’t held in high regard. They are a walking embarrassment on the act of protesting and the only reason they are still alive and going is through the same tenacity found in a cockroach. Oh Jesus. Maybe that was a bit too far, I mean surely publicly denouncing environmentalist groups and comparing them to insects will brand me as a bastard who doesn’t care about the planet wouldn’t it. But perhaps I wouldn’t be put in such a position if they actually did their job properly, because from where I’m standing the pace of their progress has slowed down theatrically and all they ever achieve through one of those circus shows they call a protest is souring the air with bad noise, getting drunk and then eventually arrested.
It might be of some interest to shed a cursory light upon Extinction Rebellion before we continue whatever this can be classed as on Insulate Britain. Because they are after all an offshoot of them and the newspapers haven’t been saving any ink to remind us of that fact.
Extinction Rebellion or (XR) call themselves an “international movement that uses non-violent civil disobedience in an attempt to halt mass extinction and minimise the risk of social collapse.” Then they go on to describe a scene of the world that sounds like it’s straight out of the introductory pages of some Lovecraftian short story, “The third world-war of profit versus life is already underway. Humanity itself is on the brink of the abyss: our potential extinction. We face the breakdown of all life, the tragedy of tragedies; the unhallowed horror.” I must admit that last bit really got me, and I’ve never really laughed at Lovecraftian language before which was an odd sensation. The thing that stings the most is that they’re right. So is Insulate Britain for that matter. Both of these groups are absolutely right that the world is in shambles and it needs fixing and that our governments are in the hands of greedy, pig-headed fascists who will sell their own grandmothers for a cheese sandwich. Their reaction is completely reasonable to the ignorance towards climate change most of the politicians are displaying and they’ve hit the nail right on the head when it comes to that untraversable void between the rich and the poor which grows day by day, eating away at the very fabric of society until the poor are pretty much wiped off the face of the Earth through one means or another. Power is in the hands of the unprincipled who think this planet and all its resources will just eventually replenish themselves for them to go at this ravaging all over again. I’m totally behind everything they stand for and agree with everything they’re protesting against. What completely kills it for me is their petulance and carelessness when they actually hit the streets. They describe their exploits on their website in such a way that it makes them sound like ground-breaking discourses between the public and the government, a linguistic flourish here and there to disguise the true nature of how things go down out there. If there’s ever an XR protest going on around you, you should really take some time out to go watch one of them. Maybe drop some acid too while you’re there. I have never seen such a disorganised swivet of colour and hair before. They swing their lurid coloured signs around like battle-axes and stumble through the streets in one lurching mass as the booze takes firm hold of their minds and when things eventually turn ugly when the non-violent civil disobedience turns into public indecency, the police intervene and start cuffing some of them. Or maybe forget the acid, because such a scene is heavy enough to witness with one’s sober eyes already.
With the amount of people that end up getting pulled off the street and arrested, it’s almost as if they’re trying to. Which they are. Their mission statements warns that arrests are inevitable. They’re just lucky enough that getting cuffed up during a protest doesn’t carry a mark on your criminal record, unless you end up attacking someone with a bike lock and get charged for grievous bodily harm, but that’s a completely different story.
Just like any self-respecting group of anarchists worth their salt, they are simmering with contempt for all the social, political and economic power structures and the evil which is flowing underneath it. All they’re missing is a bit of direction.
They identify a problem, gather in a frenetic horde while they get completely sideways on drink and drugs while chanting some unintelligible bullshit about their demands right before they get arrested.
Why do they keep doing it though? What sort of persistence is keeping them going? The basic yet integral assumption that any group who are protesting against “the system” or “the establishment” or “the government” hold is that the people in power are actually listening to them. Why else would they come out here if they knew they were screaming into the void? They are operating on a blind sort of faith that with enough noise and movement, they’ll get these influential people, sat in their comfy leather chairs up in the higher ranks of the government to actually do something. They’ve already hedged their bets on the fact that the leaders are listening, all they need to do now is create enough movement to jostle them out of their avaricious profit-oriented ways and weigh the political demands of the activist against their own political realities to realise just how out of sync “the system” and the people who were told the system would protect them have become. These politicians wield pens that have enough power in them to set radical change in motion with a single stroke, so why not whip them into action eh?
It’s a truly romantic and almost reductive way of putting it but it’s the truth. Politicians can’t ignore the realities of protests going on right outside their doors. And there’s enough press and people with bizarre tastes of strange circumstances who will ride into the wind of these demonstrations to create a story which will eventually reach someone in the government. Then it’s just a case of word of mouth. Hold on, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, and only a jackass does that. We’re omitting out the fact that though the politicians are listening, they don’t really care. A bomb set off by radical extremist activists will surely get their attention for a few days but then they’ll immediately be branded as terrorists and we know exactly what happens to terrorists in these parts. On the other hand, a group of activists hold a peaceful protest, all organised and handled under the watchful gaze of the authorities, and nothing truly noteworthy happens. No one notices the faint blip on the radar that might have just been a graphics glitch. What about the middle of the road then? The place where compromises are met and deals are sealed? A group of activists hold a loud and vociferous protest, parading through the streets and chanting for a cause that is well within the bounds of a reasonable ask. Some damage to property is done, some arrests are made, but that’s to be expected when a crowd this massive gather together. You don’t blame a tornado for uprooting a town, it’s just in its nature. Then the government immediately condemn these people for being careless and wasting everyone’s time, ultimately chasing the attention away from the real reason they were out there in the first place.
One of the most painful instances of ignorant obstinacy occurred in Poland right after the government passed the law declaring abortions illegal on October 22nd 2020. Abortion has never really been an easy thing to acquire in Poland, a country so deeply entrenched in their backwards Roman Catholic values, and the laws surrounding it have always tightened and loosened. But this particular ban was one of the most extreme ones passed which made all cases of abortion illegal, including those where the foetus is heavily deformed, severely disabled or with an incurable illness or life-threatening disease which can affect the mother also. The wave of anger and repugnance which rippled through the vast population of the country was like star-matter being ejected outwards from a supernova. Large throngs of people cheated out of their human rights took to the streets and began protesting. This wave reached a crest in the capital of Warsaw on October 30th where the largest and most seemingly catalytic demonstration took place. Over 100,000 people spilled out into the streets with signs saying “I wish I could abort my government”. I returned to the UK from Poland just a day before that happened. Had I stayed for an extra day, I would’ve been waving a sign just like that at my second protest in Poland in under a week. I saw these fantastic pictures of the sea of people in Warsaw, undulating like an ocean of righteousness and anger, thinking to myself, “I hope this actually makes a difference.” I knew in my mind the fascist airheads in the Polish government wouldn’t turn back on their decision, but I saw a glimmer of hope from the magnitude of this protest. A fuck-up so massive from the government, pulling such a large crowd will bound to grab their attention and hopefully even recant this bill. But lo and behold, abortion is still illegal in Poland to this day.
They listened, they even pretended to pay attention, but they just didn’t care.
I realise I’ve gone astray, succumbing to the powerful influences of a tangent. Even my girlfriend pointed it out just now as I was reciting ever word I typed up, “How did you go from road protestors to abortion?” That’s when I occurred to me that I’ve ended up in a very different neck of the woods. I allowed myself this however because I feel like it illustrates a point. One of obdurate blindness, a situation where politicians in power symbolically gouge out their own eyes so they can plead ignorance to the state of the people. Bleeding Christ I’m starting to sound like an unhinged backseat revolutionary here, singing horrid ballads about how the powers that be don’t care for us and that we should stand up and do something about it. Well, I’m sorry to break to you to brother, but this is ancient news now. It’s the way the planet spins and until we can come up with something truly effective to shake up whatever rusty foundations this society is standing upon, it’s best if we just make our peace with it for now and find whatever felicity we can in between.
I’ve spent time around enough anarchists to know when to let it go for a while. Come back when it’s hot.
My years spent living in Cardiff were around a whole community of anarchists who lived either on the wholesale rejection of society and on a lifestyle which closely resembles the hunter gatherers - coming back to the city every now and again out of necessity, because even the wild can drive you cuckoo sometimes – or those who only dropped certain parts of society and lived an alternative manner of life which both looks and feels like a pick-n-mix box. Everything from their hair to their clothes, to the literature and medias they absorbed reflected this action of walking away and only coming back when they had some grudge to release on the society that no longer call their own. I’ve always known that I’d be existing on the fringes of the world myself, never will I get to taste what’s right at the core of it and neither do I have any interest or taste for it. I enjoy the bitter fruits of being an outcast and have even fermented my own cellar of potent wines from those which will send a jackal sideways. I suppose that’s why I was able to fit into this group of crazies so easily.
Whenever there was an Extinction Rebellion protest rolling through town, you can put your money down on the fact that my anarchist buddies would be there. Often enough they’d even extend an invitation to me to come join them. I always refused, mostly because wandering aimlessly around town in a massive group of people who look like they haven’t showered for over a week, yelling at the top of my lungs about some stuff or another and then eventually pass out as the drink and drugs blots out the consciousness, isn’t my idea of good Friday afternoon. And I’m perfectly capable of doing all of that by myself, with the added benefit of taking a shower every single day.
Part III. The Long Arm of the Law. Cult Status. Cowards Leave Through the Back Door Please.
This is really starting to bother the politicians now. They can’t sit around for much longer, letting these “eco-freaks” as the new name goes run around wantonly blocking major motorways, before the public get the idea in their heads that the government have been intimidated. By God! We can’t let them picture that image of us! We’ve got to do something right now!
And they did. After five protests on the timeline, they didn’t want to let Insulate Britain get the idea that they can just get away with it every single time, so the ministers turned to the High Court for aid. September 23rd was the day, a sunny day for most people except those with Insulate Britain, because that was the day the High Court granted an injunction against them prohibiting any more wilful obstructions on the M25. The heavier sections of that document stated that if anyone of these lunatics set foot on the M25 with the intentions of blocking it, they’d be held in contempt of court, not an easy thing to get through especially when the punishment for it will be an unlimited fine or 2 years of prison. Yes, prison, not jail. A real sentence, not a slap on the wrist for getting picked up during a protest.
The implications of this for the nature of protesting is dire. This sends a message the government didn’t want to send because it would make them look like fascist savages, not that they weren’t already in the eyes of many, but because their hand was forced this time, they had to play it and it pleased no one on the table. When the government can just clamp down on any protest and outlaw it in any area, showcasing their power, that’s a display that no one wants to see, particularly those who have a bone or two to pick against them. No one will feel pleased about living in a state where there the freedom of expression is limited, and knowing that the government can seal our mouths in any particular area of London that they please will send a disconcerting chill down the spine of anyone who has an imagination which leans a bit too close to the dystopian. But of course, there’s business and transport to think of. The M25 is the main gateway into London and many business owners have been whipped up in a cackling frenzy of fear and trepidation over the delays and disruptions in business these protests will cause. Every delivery truck that’s delayed en route, every deadline that’s missed, each haul that doesn’t make it to its destination with the product rotting in the trailer is money lost by the hour, a prospect that will turn businessmen stupid with rage like orangutans after a lethal dose of speed.
Activists everywhere in London just lost one bit of their protesting privileges. Anyone else who might’ve been planning some sort of demonstration on the M25 can now forget about it and move their gig someplace else. In regards to Insulate Britain, that’s the flaw in the High Court’s injunction as it only keeps them off the tarmac of the M25, leaving them free to protest anywhere else, and considering that these whack jobs have a taste for prancing around in the middle of the road, there are thousands of other ones for them to choose from. This injunction was perched precariously on the knifes edge of freedom to protest, which is why the government could bar them only off the M25, any further and the mask would fall off the putrid face of the Conservative government and reveal them for the unhuman freaks they are, galloping around the Parliament and stamping out the rights for people to protest like an anthill.
So far, the total number of arrests are 270. But they’ve been all set loose after their brief time soaking up the stifling air of the jailhouse. From now however, if they get nabbed by the cops, they’ll be there for a lot longer than a night.
But that all seems part of the plan for these guys. Co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and the supposed mastermind behind Insulate Britain, Roger Hallam has big plans for his followers. His elaborate plan will shine light upon his movement and humiliate Boris Johnson in one fell swoop. His bright idea is to make a fool out of Boris Johnson at the Cop26 – the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference – in November by getting his own protestors locked up…. Wait a minute did I read that correctly? Christ on a bike I did! I want to see the face behind which the brain sits that came up with this fucking delusional idea. This withered ageing man who looks like a cross between a hairless cat finally managing to grow some facial hair and a bald chimp is operating on a very special strain of insanity.
“The whole world will be looking at Johnson and they’ll say, ‘You’re Mr. Green and you’ve got 200 people in prison because they want you to insulate some houses?’ It’s not going to look good.” He says with the conviction of a schizophrenic describing his echoes.
Let me roll this around in my head so I can get an idea of what he’s talking about. So, this specimen of carnal denseness wants at least 200 of his protestors to serve prison time during November till God knows when so he can maybe get the attention of the parties at Cop26 and aim their admonishments at Boris Johnson for locking these animals up. And the sheer fact that his protestors are completely on board his strategy of mass imprisonment, and that the number of recruitments for Insulate Britain are steadily climbing, or else how would they have more pawns to replace the ones arrested, just exhibits the sanity quotient of the people involved.
Unless…. Our friend Roger Hallam here fancies himself a Charlie Manson when he looks at himself in the mirror. How else do you think he overturns the sane and suggestive young minds of recent graduates and gullible anarchists on the many talks he’s held through the summer? This man did after all study a PhD specialising in research around the capacity of civil disobedience and radical action to bring about social change, whether he finished it or not is a separate question altogether. Although if he did complete it, I wouldn’t accord him the same courtesy of calling someone Doctor as I would to anyone else holding a PhD. My own beliefs in intelligence and common sense won’t allow me that. He’s obviously gotten into their heads enough to convince them to throw themselves into the path of a 14-wheeler truck travelling at speeds enough to turn a human body into a bloody pancake. Who knows how far these dull-witted fanatics will go for him? I won’t be surprised at all if I found Mr. Hallam wandering around town with his own detail of praetorian guards. A man of his stature needs security, or the hands required to pick anyone he dislikes off the street and torture them by zapping their nuts using jumper cables.
Slow down man… these slanderous images of brutality are stepping a tad over the line here. I’m asking for a law suit here. But you’ve got to hear the way he talks in order to get your own distinct impression of him, one of a man totally whacked out on the high that comes from being a pea under the mattress of the system. A mere annoyance.
“Going to banks and smashing windows (as XR have done in the past) isn’t going to change anything. It’s not material resistance. It’s symbolic and won’t change anything.”
He continues, “We have the absolute responsibility to go further. 500 people in prison will bring about legislative change.”
If it was up to this horse-fucker, his entire movement except him would looking out the small brick-sized windows of prison while he jumps outside holding a sign saying, “Look what you’ve done!”
If anyone were in need of further proof on just how stark raving mad this “person” and his movement have become, look no further than Extinction Rebellion furthering themselves from this tainted group. Oh such magnificent irony! Some Extinction Rebellion reps have quietly gotten in touch with Surrey Police and have complained how they’re being linked to Insulate Britain. They probably realised that their own co-founder who took a hiatus in the mountains of Wales all those months ago, leaving with a bag full of magic mushrooms and returning as a disconsolately calm plank of wood, has turned into a liability and they must amputate this limb before the infection spreads to the vital organs.
The decision was reached swiftly and it was time to call the police.
“Hello Surrey Police department.”
“Hello…” a voice whispers on the other end of the phone.
“Who is this? Can I help in any way?” the female police despatcher asks confidently.
“My name is WXYZ and I’m part of Extinction Rebellion. I’m concerned for my life.” The whispering voice continues.
“Are you alright? Where are you calling from? Are you in any immediate danger?” the police despatcher kicks into overdrive.
“I’m calling from my home. I’m not in any danger at the moment but this is important.”
The urgent edge in the police despatchers voice softens a bit. “What is the matter then?”
“I’m calling about the activities of Insulate Britain. We don’t agree with them.” The whisper turns into a stern deceleration, still a whisper though.
“Neither do we. They’ve kept our hands full when we were supposed to have a quiet few days.” The despatcher responds in a regretful tone. “Is that all you called to tell me?”
“No, you don’t understand, we really don’t condone their actions.” Still whispering. “Don’t think for a second that we have anything to do with them…. Anymore.” The voice whispers further asking whether she understands what is being inferred.
“Ohhhhhhh. No more? Why?” the curiosity in the despatchers voice gives it away for a moment.
“They’ve all gone fucking insane! They have plans. They won’t mention anything but they’re cooking something and it doesn’t smell nice at all.” The whispering intensifies almost into an audible voice.
Just to cover her bases as the police academy has ingrained in her, the despatcher had to ask, “Cooking? Have you witnessed any drug production where ever they are based?”
“No! I mean they’re getting mixed up into something we don’t agree with. They’re going too far!”
“I see. What would you like me to do about it?” asks the despatcher sensing that this phone call is directionless.
“Look, just inform the newspapers that we have nothing to do with them anymore. They’re not some offshoot or sister movement to us anymore. Please.” That last entreaty wandered over into an audible sound coming from her throat rather than lungs. Some shuffling on the phone and then a faint voice from the background. “What are you doing love? Who are you on the phone to?”
No more whispers anymore as the voice talks normally to the one in the background, “Oh nothing Roger, just on the phone to my mother.”
The police despatcher a bit confused, touches her skin to make sure of something.
“Goodbye mother!” the voice booms through the receiver and hangs up.
The policewoman puts down the phone, turns left to her colleague and tell him about the strangest phone call she’s just had…
September 23rd 2021 still. Alongside the injunction against Insulate Britain came another landmark event which will lurk through their history like a vagrant holding a brick standing outside the bank with the intention of hurling it through the window. You can never trust such disreputable because you never know how much they have in them. I envy those who witnessed this unfold live on TV because that must’ve been something to behold. I on the other had to help myself to scraps leftover in the form of clips and highlights on the internet. What am I referring to? The interview on Good Morning Britain of course. The best way to describe that show is that the police nor the government need not lift a finger against this group to destroy them because they’re doing a such a bang-up job of doing it themselves. What went down though?
A spokesperson for Insulate Britain, Liam Norton, was invited on for a little chit-chat on the talk show. The term “interview” doesn’t fit this exchange as well as “interrogation” does. Had this interview been aired on a sports channel, it would’ve easily been mistaken for a tennis match where one side completely drives over the other. Hosts Susannah Reid and Richard Madeley were the ones to carry out this verbal execution and they caught him out very early in the interview when they pointed out that Norton’s house wasn’t insulated either. Stats gathered from Energy Efficiency, Liam Norton’s single-glazed, gas central heating house with no wall cavity insulation doesn’t exactly practice what he vehemently preaches. With the expression that seized up on Norton’s face for an imperceptible second, he really hoped that they wouldn’t find out and ask him about it. That ephemeral moment of total despair when you don’t know how you’re going to answer that.
His reply was surprisingly reasonable, saying that it costs “tens of thousands” to carry out something which millions [of people] can’t afford. Susannah Reid’s retort to that was something that he would not recover from however because little did Norton know that he just used his last ounce of thought on his previous reply.
“Is that the case? You’re saying you would risk your life for Insulate Britain but you’re not going to insulate your own home? Sorry if that sounds patronising but it seems to completely sabotage your cause.”
Which it does when you take into account the lengths they’ve been going to make the lives of the authorities an abject nightmare of superfluous work. I don’t care what becomes of the cops or the government and what work they have to put in to clear the motorways, what I’m concerned about is the knock-on effect it’s having on the innocent people who have to hang around in their cars for hours at a time in a frozen traffic jam while these hollow-heads prance around demanding that the government insulate everybody’s homes. It completely discredits their motion and punches it full of holes like a human body in the line of fire of a 50-calibre machine gun when it comes out all of a sudden that one of the organisers of this movement doesn’t have an insulated home. No one will care whether he can afford it or not, all they’ll care about it the principle. No matter how much we deny it, we are subconsciously a species of principle and tradition. We prefer the good old ways when people stick to their word. Or do we? I can’t tell at this point with how muddled things have become…
Reid repeats the question whether he’s willing to lose his life orchestrating these awareness raising stunts, making Norton do what all other Insulate Britain organisers resort to in such a position, dodging the question completely or answering a completely separate imaginary question. He replies with the usual vague urgency that “people are going to lose their lives if nothing is done.”
When asked next if he was willing to risk the life of one of his protestors, in a moment of pure cosmic delirium as if calling out to the universe, he says, “It’s terrible isn’t it.” A lot of things are very terrible my friend, you’re just going to have to be a little bit more specific about what’s so terrible to you.
This signalled his decline into madness, on live TV. A TV audience doesn’t get to see that every day. I would’ve loved to be inside of his head to witness his neurons firing rapidly like lightbulbs having a violent seizure and beholding his synapses being invaded by the purple mist of insanity as his mind recoils in horror. At this point the interview descends into disarray.
Out of nowhere with seemingly no connection at the moment, the man asks, “Do you know how many MPs supported Churchill in 1939?”
A confused Richard Madeley replies with my favourite moment of this interview, “I don’t care.” This moment alone makes me want to buy this guy a drink.
“Six MPs and Churchill was right wasn’t he but only six supported him.” Ventured Norton.
“You’re comparing yourself to Churchill? This must be the most twisted parallel I think I’ve ever heard.” Madeley confesses.
I mean who can blame Liam Norton? At that point I think his brain and the uncontrollable spasms of desperation it was falling into resembled a bucking horse after a gun goes off mere millimetres from its ear. Liam proceeded to dig his grave even deeper as he continued, “I’m putting myself in the historical situation where the public aren’t always with you but you’re still right. And we’re right now. We’re talking about the destruction of our economy and our health service.”
Right after saying that, he lapsed into a total dominating cluelessness, got up out of his chair as a void filled his head and stormed off the stage, babbling to himself, as if on auto-pilot, something about “the state of things.” The last glimpse the camera caught of Liam Norton was as he turned the stage and towards the backdoor leading him presumably off the set, a blur as he speeds off the gallows engulfed in a haze of disgrace and shame, leaving an indelible stain of immaturity upon the name of Insulate Britain. Richard Madeley even commented during his walk-out as they basically shooed him off stage with laughter, that he bore a significant similarity to Piers Morgan. And no one has taken that rat bastard Piers Morgan seriously ever since, but then again when did people ever?
In regards to the whole Churchill thing, it really would’ve helped illustrate his point better if he led into it rather than coming right out with such a bizarre and far-fetched connection saying that he’s basically Winston Churchill in this situation. Some may say that his words were ever so slightly twisted by Richard Madeley, he could’ve taken in the point Norton was trying to make and see that as ridiculous and hyperbolic the connection may seem, there is indeed a faint thread connecting the two together. A stopped clock tells the time twice a day. But who the hell wouldn’t ridicule him like that? Especially since he’s been antagonising the hosts on their own turf through the whole interview. The debate was not a calm one. He was a decibel or two away from screaming at the top of his lungs, and he maintained this volume throughout the whole talk. There’s being passionate about something and then there’s showing yourself as a total wreck. Just because someone is screaming louder than the other person doesn’t necessarily make their argument better. Tell me who wouldn’t twist and ridicule the words of someone who act with such unceremonious disrespect on their show?
It scares me to think how the conversation must’ve gone when Liam Norton had to show his greasy little bald head to his superiors.
Walking straight out of the studio he is met by a black car with tinted windows waiting there for him. The back passenger door opens ominously and he tentatively gets in. There’s a man with scruffy facial hair upon a pimpled face growing matted dreadlocks out of the top sat next to him staring angrily into his eyes. Liam Norton looks ahead to see another dishevelled looking bald man staring back at him with a look that screams disappointment. The driver keeps looking straight but from what Liam can see, he’s in a suit and wearing the classic chauffeur attire. The door closes and the car takes off smoothly. The atmosphere inside the car is unbearable for Liam, the indifferent apathy of insanity is wearing off and he’s coming back down to his primitive senses. He’s in trouble and he’s well aware of that. A cock-up this big will not go unpunished, he thinks to himself when the guy in front says, “Make no mistake Liam, a cock-up this big will not go unpunished.”
Suddenly a phone rings in the pocket of the man beside him. Keeping his eyes locked onto Liam the dreadlocked man pulls the buzzing phone out of his pocket and answers it.
“Yes, he’s with us. We’re coming over right now.”
“Who was that?” Asks Liam, being careful not to overstep his bounds. His loud and rambunctious demeanour from the interview has completely evaporated and now he speaks like a mouse among the company of starving alley cats.
“That was the Supreme Guiding Light Lord Roger. He’s not happy and he’s expecting you.”
A heavy pebble drops through the surface of the pond in his soul and sends intense ripples of tension through his being. He looks out the window and for the rest of the journey to HQ his mind is totally free to imagine all the ways in which he’ll be strung up and tortured until he breathes his final despairing breath.
The car comes to a stop at the dockyards. Not a very inviting and welcoming place for a car to stop for someone in Liam’s situation. The driver presses a button and door besides Liam opens slowly.
“Oh God! They’re going to shoot me, wrap my body u in a tarp, tie some heavy stones to it and drop me into the English Channel.” Thought Liam in the voice and vain of similar thoughts that had been plaguing him the whole way there.
He gets out of the car and promptly the door closes before the car drives off towards civilisation. Looking around to see where they’ve bought him and what will definitely be his final resting place, his surveying is interrupted by the door of the shipping container right in front of him opening. A menacingly muscular man in a black skin-tight sweater pushes the door open from the inside and holds it there for him.
No words are exchanged but Liam knows he must enter. As he wanders into the space of the shipping container he sees before him a solitary man sitting on what looks like a throne with two more of the same muscular men, like the gentleman he’s just walking past right now, beside him. A little shaft of light is falling from the small gaps in the ceiling of the shipping container, like ropes of light hanging from a tree, onto the man in the throne. As Liam comes closer, he notices the man wearing a black hooded robe with the lower part of his face jutting out into the dusty light. Arms laying downwards on the rests of his throne, the man looks like Emperor Palpatine. Closer he comes to within a few feet of the man on the throne and stops. The mysterious figure raises his hands to drop his hood and cazart! It’s Roger Hallam. With dead eyes and his skin all dried up and withering like Emperor Palpatine too he finally emits a word.
“Liam.”
Continuing in his raspy voice, “Liam. Did you convince them that we mean business?”
“N… No my Supreme Guiding Light Lord Hallam…”
“That was your purpose for going onto that show, was it not Liam?” asks Hallam in his excellency.
“Yes. It was.” Spits out Norton.
Shooting out of his throne, Hallam screams with rage, “Then why is it that the country now thinks we’re a bunch of clueless idiots?!” His voice reverberating around the metal walls of the shipping container.
“I… I’m sorry my Supreme Guiding Light. I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s your Supreme Guiding Light Lord Hallam for you son! You have made us look like incompetent animals here!” Hallam’s words swarm him. He composes himself, brushes the creases out of his robe and sits back down. “I trusted you with this task, and you’ve failed me. Tell me what is to be done with you?”
“I don’t know my Supreme Guiding Light Lord Hallam?” Norton thinks for a moment. “You can maybe demote me.”
Roger Hallam laughs out incredulously at such a prospect. The echoes of his laugh face away with a metallic edge to them. “Do you expect me to demote you? There is a hierarchy to things and you expect me to break that? No. Let the punishment fit the crime.”
Hallam gets out of his throne again but this time he starts walking towards Liam Norton, with the two guards following him like a shadow in darkness. Liam Norton can feel his skeleton sinking further back into his skin, but his feet are paralysed on the stop because he knows that if he moves, worse will befall him. Just inches away from his face, Hallam leans in and says, “We will put a stop to all this rambling. Your words got us into trouble on that show, we’ll make sure you don’t speak for a while.”
Suddenly like frogs leaping out a dynamite pond, the guards pounce on Liam and pin him against the metallic wall of the shipping container. One of them shoves his hand in his mouth and pulls out his tongue while the other pulls a pair of kitchen scissors out of his back pocket and holds Norton’s tongue between the blades. Terrible screams of anguish and horror are gurgling out of Liam’s throat as his tongue is just one swift movement away from being cut out.
Roger Hallam is yodelling away with laughter at this unhuman display of violence. Once he composes himself, he says, “This time I’m letting you off easy, the next time I have to see you here, you will leave with your tongue in your pocket.”
The big gorillas of guards unhand the poor quivering creature that Liam Norton has become as he sinks onto the floor while retreating his tongue back into his mouth. Tears of fear are flowing down his face as he manages to get a few weak words out, “I assure you my Supreme Guiding Light Roger Hallam, it will never happen again!”
Hallam walks out with his guards and on his way, he says to them, “I could really murder an ice cream right now!”
Then they head off to track down some soft-serve ice cream while Norton looks around the empty shipping container, eyes turgid with fear and his body still in the menacing grip of paralysis.
Holy shocking hell did I really just let myself fall into that twisted scene? Five goddamn pages of brutal torturing gibberish! I could get locked up for this. Oh well, many fine books have been written in prison. There’s no saving this story anymore. Any moment now rigor mortis will set into these sentences and we’ll be trapped here forever. I need to get this thing moving and be out of here before the final chill sets these certifiably psychotic words into stone.
That feral tangent has completely warped my perception of this story. Words like “Insulate Britain” and “Injunctions” have very weird and hazy interpretations in my brain, divorced from what they usually mean. I should make myself a cup of tea and pull myself together to get this wreck in motion again. Grease up the wheels so to speak or else we’ll be staring down the barrels of another linguistic breakdown.
Dropping randomly back into the territory of that High Court Injunction against Insulate Britain, Home Secretary Priti Patel was the face who delivered the injunction to the press and public. She is the face of this injunction now, regardless of how hit the gavel. So, when members of Insulate Britain caught wind of this, they retaliated back in the only way they knew how. Gathering right outside the Home Office with copies of the injunction in hand, they immediately set fire to those copies and yelled…
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