Opinion: Insulate Britain: blocking
roads will alienate some people – but
it’s still likely to be effective by Will De
Freitas
Insulate Britain is a campaign group
urging government action on
greenhouse gas emissions and fuel
poverty in the country’s housing stock.
Their methods have recently landed
them in the news, as activists blocked
parts of the M25 – the motorway
surrounding London – by sitting on slip
roads and in the carriageway until their
removal by police.
The long delays their protests caused
drew outrage from motorists and much
of the media that reported it. So what
is the purpose of this kind of
disruption, made popular in recent
years by Extinction Rebellion (XR)?
The American sociologist Charles Tilly
argued that all protest actions were
what he called WUNC displays: shows
of worthiness, unity, numbers and
commitment. The goal was not to stop
or make something happen directly,
but to demonstrate the strength and
appeal and values of the protesters, so
that both those in power and the
general public would listen to their
message.
Direct action groups tend to be slightly
different from traditional social
movements: their actions typically
carry higher risks, and they tend to
have fewer organisational resources.
While they are very committed, being
“respectable” isn’t necessarily so
important, and the actions are typically
carried out by relatively small numbers
of people. Creating disruption helps
make up for these shortcomings.
Novelty and attention
Protest is the language of people
denied access to power – it is designed
to draw attention, to be seen and
heard. It is much more likely for
protesters to achieve something if they
inconvenience others in the process,
rather than (as more established
groups tend to do) leading a march or a
demo. Many activists in Britain drew
that lesson from the massive anti-Iraq
war protests of 2003, which mobilised
so many people and yet achieved little.
Recently, researchers have shown this
to be true by comparing various kinds
of protest over the past decade.
Strikes, sit-ins, occupations and
blockades have proven more likely to
achieve some degree of success than
less disruptive protests such as
marches, demos or petitions.
One reason for the efficiency of
disruption is that it is much more likely
to provide press coverage, particularly
when it is novel. It’s instructive to
compare the Insulate Britain protests
with the recent Extinction Rebellion
protests. In April 2019, XR were able to
garner widespread media and political
attention by occupying central London
for nearly two weeks. Since then
however, doing the same thing has
brought diminishing returns: the police
are better prepared, the actions are
less disruptive, they mobilise fewer
people, and the media has turned
elsewhere.
Yet people stopping traffic on the M25
has attracted attention. And the small
group of activists have managed to get
their demands – insulate all social
housing by 2025 and all homes by 2030
– printed in national newspapers. Their
clear demands are an evolution of XR’s
preference for leaving details of what
policies are needed to tackle climate
change to a future citizens’ assembly.
Is annoying people worthwhile?
Critics say that blocking roads hurts
vulnerable people. In this case, talk
radio hosts highlighted delays to one
girl’s taxi journey to her special needs
school. In the case of anti-fracking
activists who blocked the A583 in
Lancashire in July 2017, the trial judge
argued that the inconvenience caused
– the police had to set up a contraflow
– justified sending three of them to jail
on a public nuisance charge.
But as any motorist can tell you, these
things happen every day. If you drive a
car to work, you’ll know how often you
are delayed, by accidents, roadworks,
sheer weight of traffic.
Other critics will point to the confused
logic of blocking roads for the cause of
insulating homes. There is, indeed,
little connection between the two,
unlike activists occupying the Science
Museum to protest Shell’s sponsorship
of its climate change exhibition and
calling for divestment, or blockades of
fracking sites. But then again, there
isn’t much of a direct connection
between marching through London
and demanding that British forces
don’t invade Iraq, either. Yet, these
protests still have value.
Where groups engage in more indirect
forms of disruption, it’s necessary to do
more behind the scenes for the protest
to make sense, including making the
link explicit for onlookers. Insulate
Britain held banners with their name
and logo – a quick search on the web
takes you to a website outlining what
the group wants. It is, in other words,
all about the target audience, the
public, which activists reach through
the media. Nothing will be achieved
there and then. Britain’s homes will not
be insulated as a result of this
particular protest.
Of course, disruptive protest annoys
people, and protesters sometimes lose
support because of this. YouGov
measured public support for XR
recently and found that nearly half of
those polled have a negative opinion of
the group. But broad popularity isn’t all
that relevant. Direct action groups
aren’t running for elections. They don’t
need to be supported by a majority. At
least 73% of those polled had heard of
XR – more than Momentum (33%),
Stonewall (50%), ActionAid (60%), or
the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament (64%).
What Insulate Britain want is to
highlight political inertia and force the
government to take action. And it is
unlikely that people will be against
insulating homes just because they get
annoyed at protesters. An estimated
four million UK households currently
live in fuel poverty. Insulating homes is
an essential part of lowering Britain’s
emissions – and saving British
households a lot of money. So, while
Insulate Britain may well not be
popular, their strategy appears to be to
take the hit among some groups who
might be irked by their methods in
order to get home insulation in the
news and up the government’s agenda.