Extinction Riot Tries to Persuade Insurers – From twenty sixth February to third March 2024, Extinction Riot have been holding an ‘Insurance coverage Week of Motion’ with massive peaceable protests and a few non-violent direct actions directed on the insurance coverage trade, notably within the Metropolis of London,
Because the XR web site put it:
“Similtaneously Coal Motion Community, Moms Rise Up, Quakers UK, StopEACOP and Tipping Level, we can be concentrating on the worldwide insurance coverage trade – the individuals who might cease the fossil gasoline crooks of their tracks in a single day in the event that they wished to.
As a result of no insurance coverage = no extra drilling for oil and fuel.”
The Metropolis of London remains to be the world capital for the worldwide insurance coverage trade, with one firm, Lloyds of London insuring 40% of the world’s fossil gasoline manufacturing and it’s also residence to many different main international insurers.
Monday was a coaching day for XR, with lectures concerning the classes which could possibly be learnt from the West Cumbria coal mine marketing campaign and the significance of the insurance coverage trade in sustaining the fossil gasoline trade and why it was essential to attempt to convert them away from this and in direction of supporting a future for human life on our planet. There have been additionally a workshop on non-violent direct motion, analyzing the theories behind it and how you can create help techniques and hold secure.
Nothing could possibly be farther from the feedback made by the Prime Minister and different cupboard members about ‘mobs’. The protests are nicely organised and take appreciable bother to stay throughout the increasinly restrictive legal guidelines on freedom to protest. In distinction they make our authorities audio system appear a rabid mob, making hate speeches about hate protests and disruption. XR try to save lots of our planet for future human life.
I used to be unable to go to the occasions on Monday or Tuesday when in addition to some extremely focused actions together with small teams of protesters protesting peacfully contained in the foyers of some metropolis workplaces there was a big rally on Tuesday adopted by a Neighborhood Meeting on the topic “How can we Insure our Future?
However final Wednesday I joined the XR supporters in Trinity Sq. Gardens at 10.30 for the beginning of the marketed “Insurance coverage Mayhem – Wednesday Showstopper“. A few of them had adopted the prompt gown code for the occasion, “enterprise apparel. Black fits with white shirts, ideally!” A bunch carried particular and fairly shiny small briefcases and there have been banners and some placards. Some in metropolis gown had include gray masks and labels as ‘Faceless Financiers’
Little occurred for the primary hour or so, although there was a powerful police presence within the space, and a few officers got here to speak with and warn protesters who advised them they weren’t intending to interrupt any legal guidelines.Lastly at 12.15 the march moved off for a brief march by metropolis streets to the streets round the principle Lloyds Constructing on Leadenhall Road and Lime Road. One man was arrested on the march, I believe for setting off a smoke flare, which police left smoking on the bottom.
Protesters joined fingers to encompass the Lloyds Constructing on three sides, some holding banners and flags. They let individuals out and in of the constructing and tried to interact them in dialog concerning the pressing want to finish fossil fuels. A number of stopped to say they agreed however most easily walked previous and there have been just a few indignant remarks. It was lunchtime and fairly just a few metropolis employees have been out on the streets and stopped to observe what was occurring and have been clearly entertained, taking photos on their telephones of the audio system and the varied occasions.
These included protests by ‘employees’ in crimson boiler fits in opposition to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, a 900 mile lengthy heated pipeline from Ugandan oil fields to the Indian Ocean in Tanzania which might trigger “massive scale displacement of communities and wildlife“, threaten water assets and contribution massively to international warming. 24 banks have already distanced themselves from financing the mission, with solely two remaining concerned, and it’ll definitely not go forward if insurers could be persuaded to not insure it.
The ‘Faceless Financiers’ now all had their uninteresting gray masks on and have been standing collectively in a row in entrance of the constructing on Lime Road the place a lot of the occasion was happening, its closure inflicting little or no disruption to visitors. In entrance of them got here a big troupe of dancers for his or her spirited efficiency and on the opposite aspect of the highway was a washing line hung with gadgets of youngsters’s clothes letters on the clothes spelling out the message ‘THEIR FUTURE’.
The “Insurance coverage Mayhem – Wednesday Showstopper” was nonetheless persevering with as I left for residence. I used to be again for the following day’s very moist protest which I’ll maybe write about in a later publish.
Extra photos of Insurance coverage Mayhem – Wednesday Showstopper.
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Tags: Metropolis of London, Coal Motion Community, soiled cash, EACOP, Extinction Riot, Faceless financiers, fossil fuels, human rights, insurance coverage corporations, Insurance coverage Week of Motion, Insure Our Future, inusre local weather justice, Lloyds, Lloyds of London, London, march, Moms Rise Up, non-violent direct motion, Solely Fools Insure Fossil Fuels, peaceable protests, peter Marshall, police, protest, Quakers UK, insurgent for reality, StopEACOP, Tipping Level, XR
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