Dear Rebels,

It’s been a few months since we all came together for The Big One in Westminster. We certainly haven’t been sitting still since then, and exciting things are in the making! We’ve forged alliances and friendships with other movements, organisations and groups, and are looking to build more connections with our community assemblies throughout the UK. 

We know from history that successful civil disobedience movements are highly disciplined with robust organisational infrastructures. The Big One was arguably our most successful rebellion since April 2019 with over 100,000 on the streets and more than 200 organisations coming together. The tireless commitment from everyone involved was a real testament to the strength and resilience of rebels, and our self-organising system (SOS) which enabled us to successfully achieve such a complex and immense task.

Since The Big One, we’ve released a new Movement Strategy for 2023-2024 (Here Comes Everyone) as well as an Actions Strategy. Our strategies focus on relationship building and developing community bases of power.  This work flows from the spirit of The Big One and is absolutely vital if we want successful action on the climate and ecological emergency that is fair and inclusive for all life on earth.   

A key to this is trust, transparency and accountability. We are demanding this from our government, the fossil fuel industry, people in power, and we must demand it from ourselves too. For this reason, lots is happening all around the movement in terms of rejigging groups, mandates, and importantly: our financial structure. 

Our financial structure still dates back to XR UK’s very early days and needs a refresh for the movement we have become over the last five years. Guided by our principles and values and taking strength from our SOS we mitigate power and resist hierarchy. Our SOS creates a level playing field where no-one is above the rules, and that includes a corporate financial structure that does not serve us.

Moving forward, there is still a lot to do within our movement and we want to share each step of this journey with all of you. We’ve all come from the toxic system that has created the crises we face, and we need to unlearn bad habits and ways of thinking. This is hard, but we’re doing it together. As we look to build relationships, we must continue our work on breaking down barriers such as racism, colonialism, speciesism, and inequality. This is the work we need to do.

Love and rage,

XRUK