No, Extinction Rebellion have not set up a political party

We’ve seen a couple of stories hit the news this week about people who are or were involved in Extinction Rebellion beginning new projects and using their connection to the movement as a way of launching those projects. Rather than adding to the many opinions within the movement about the value of these, we’re going to use our energy to continue organising towards a society that is acting on the climate and ecological emergency and leave these people to do non-XR work like setting up political parties and so on, if that’s what they feel is the best use of their time.

To be clear: Extinction Rebellion has not set up a political party. 

We would like to confirm our acknowledgement that some of our rebels with a public profile are free to take actions in other work, but should accept personal responsibility for any impacts on Extinction Rebellion and the hard work that goes into it. As a decentralised network working with nonviolence we will continue to remind ourselves that this means each of us has a responsibility for the whole, and to take care in our actions collectively and individually.

We have a lot of important work happening right now within XR which involves reflecting on past criticisms and we recognise how crucial it is to bring people together during these turbulent times, not cause further division or disruption to this important work. More on this to come soon.

XRUK Media & Messaging Team