Week 22 of the lock-down and it’s looking like chaos. On the one hand the noise of people waking up to past injustices everywhere. Belarus. Washington. Children. Black Lives Matter. And on new terms again, the protests from people fearing for their personal sovereignty in Berlin and London.

On the other hand, the sound of government whipping up their own storm. Trump sending out the troops to quell riots he instigated. And in the UK, Boris Johnson perfecting the U-turn strategy for aggrieving as many generally compliant people as he can. Teachers, parents, nurses – all those who have been remarkable for their willingness to go with government plans till now, are being royally messed about. Just enough to make front page headlines that will grieve a patient populace.

For those who are not familiar with this tactic, you might read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine or Dominic Cummings own blog (made more comprehensible here by TruePublica) to notice how a government might deliberately create chaos and confusion around an important issue. Then step in as the people who will rescue you from it. Remember the success of Get Brexit Done when people were so weary of two years of chaos generated by the referendum.

Now watch this: Let’s Get Going – an attempt to make a virtue of forward momentum, in the midst of a Covid crisis (the soundtrack to this ad has spawned a host of apocalyptic parodies). This from a government clearly responsible for slowing every good response to the pandemic down to a snail’s pace.

We may take some comfort from the evidence that the media is onto it. See this BBC piece which quotes senior Conservative politician Charles Walker, deputy chair of the 1922 Committee. Walker objects to his own government’s policy confusion (of both MPs and voters), “whether it is by design or by accident”.

By design? Indeed. Government gently chiding us to “get going” is the equivalent of the bully in the playground deriding you publicly for not shaking hands.

Any minute now we will see a campaign designed to lift us magically out of the blues they generated. We can’t be sure of the list, but - watching the signs - it will prompt a lot of ‘cutting red tape’. A whole strata of local government is about to be swept away. Building regulations are about to be abandoned. New ‘free ports’ are likely to be announced as job creation schemes. (They will also be very advantageous as tax havens, for money laundering and driving down wages). Let’s Get Going!

What this campaign will never allude to is the amount of environmental regulation that will be swept away, as if cobwebs from an era of caring about the planet. For that reason, we welcome with open arms again, Extinction Rebellion, about to hit our streets from September 1st.

It seems a long time since we have seen their shocking, non-violent, often beautiful campaigns physically occupy the space. Or the face of Greta Thunberg, telling us straight that governmental efforts all over the world to change the course of the climate emergency thus far are failing. Covid-19 drove everyone into their homes and, to a large extent, back into their bubbles. It’s difficult to be heard from your Zoom room, however loud you shout.

In the interregnum we have heard a lot of competing and sometimes disparaging sentiments. For many the last we heard of XR was the Canning Town incident: this showed poor judgement over timing and location, causing a strong public backlash and subsequent disillusion. Numbers and support dropped off drastically and XR have had their own long dark night of the soul, grappling with accusations of racial and class bias.

But as you might expect from a group fixated with human and planetary survival, they’ve taken seriously the internal work demanded of them. To meet the targets XR set themselves, they have to be prepared to constantly improve and evolve. This includes diversifying and developing multiple perspectives.

The Lightship Greta begins its journey from Brighton to London

Elements of XR have moved into a new orbit. Co-Founder Roger Hallam has gone full Robin Hood with Beyond Politics (or “Burning Pink” as its current website confusingly has it), stealing from the rich to give to the poor. He deliberately employs shock tactics to wake up those still sleeping as the house burns. Others have moved more engagingly into ‘community transforming’, holding People’s Assemblies for anyone already working in fields of care and organising to build more effective networks of trust.

Still others are focused on the deep issues of our collective trauma – the de-humanising effects of our social history (or even modernity itself) on everyone, whatever your privilege. See here for a deep and comprehensive account of the trauma’s origins, and how we might transform its impact for the future, by Eva Schonveld and Justin Kenrick. And here from Tomas Huebl and author / journalist Matthew Green.

A/UK’s own direct co-creating with XR has taken the form of the Future Democracy Hub and its progeny, Trust the People. We’ll be collaborating next year on Flatpack’s Democracy campaign: co-founder Peter Macfadyen will be our Guest Editorial next week.

In short, we’re all in this together.

For now, it’s time for XR to get back into the public eye. Not only to move environmental awareness forward. But to stop it moving drastically backwards at the hands of those politicians hell-bent on making their own mark (as outlined above). Starting with the march from Brighton to London (abiding with all the Covid-19 rules) alongside the Lightship Greta, this campaign will display the steady, courageous, long-term commitment of the rebels of all generations. This platform stands (and marches) with them.

Here is their schedule of events which we are reproducing in our newsletter to give everyone not already on their vast mailing list a chance to participate. You’ll see that it invites many different strands of society – teachers, doctors, grandparents, interfaith groups – to focus momentarily on their own perspective. But there are also multiple forms and feels for rebelling – marching, cycling, singing, as well as silence – that aim to include everyone.

There’s one caution we’re hearing repeatedly from different forms of activism or theories of change: none of us know what is really going on or what might happen in the future. That may well be true. At the same time, if challenged, every one of us know what we stand for. XR stands for the survival of the planet and the rights of our children and grandchildren to live.

What excuse could any one of us have for not standing up with them?

Alternative Editorial: Clarity In Chaos