Patel labels climate change protesters ‘selfish’ after motorway disruption

The Home Secretary said climate change protesters who caused motorway disruption this week were “selfish”.

Priti Patel said Insulate Britain activists used “guerilla tactics” which “distracted from their cause”, the BBC has reported.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps also criticised the protest as “dangerous and counterproductive” and said “this sort of behaviour achieves nothing, puts drivers at risk and increases pollution”.

Insulate all UK ‘leaky homes’

Several parts of the M25 saw traffic being stopped on Monday and Wednesday, and more than 70 people were arrested each day.

On Friday, the M25 was blocked again, together with the M11 in Essex, M1 in Hertfordshire and M3 in Surrey.

The group warned action will continue until the government makes a “meaningful commitment to insulate all of Britain’s 29 million leaky homes by 2030”.

But a government spokesperson said it is investing £1.3 billion this year to help Brits install energy efficiency measures.

“Our upcoming Heat and Buildings Strategy will set out how we decarbonise the nation’s homes in a way that is fair, practical and affordable,” the spokesperson said.

End of civilisation

Meanwhile, Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam, who is affiliated with Insulate Britain, told The London Economic: “there’s an eerie sort of phoniness about the press reaction” to XR’s recent protests.

He added the reaction is on the lines of the fact that activists “are all terrible people, blah blah blah.”

“Whereas the reality of what Extinction Rebellion (XR) has been saying is: if you don’t get on with the job, we’re facing the end of civilisation. That’s Oxbridge speak for the biggest shitshow in the history of humanity.”

‘Billions of people at immediate risk’

Last month, United Nations warned humans’ harmful impact on the planet is already “locked in” for decades but the climate crisis could get much worse.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in a report that without rapid and large-scale action to cut down emissions, global temperatures are set to increase – and pass the critical 1.5-degree Celsius threshold in the next two decades.

UN’s Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: “The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.

“Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible.

“This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.”

In recent months, environmental problems included wildfires in Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Russia and Italy.

There have also been floods across European countries which caused people to die in Germany, Belgium, Romania, Austria and Italy.

Guterres called for government leaders and all stakeholders to come together to avoid a “climate catastrophe” – and stressed there is “not time for delay and no room for excuses”.

Andra Maciuca

Andra is a multilingual, award-winning NQJ senior journalist and the UK’s first Romanian representing co-nationals in Britain and reporting on EU citizens for national news. She is interested in UK, EU and Eastern European affairs, EU citizens in the UK, British citizens in the EU, environmental reporting, ethical consumerism and corporate social responsibility. She has contributed articles to VICE, Ethical Consumer and The New European and likes writing poetry, singing, songwriting and playing instruments. She studied Journalism at the University of Sheffield and has a Masters in International Business and Management from the University of Manchester. Follow her on: