Green Party leader says Extinction Rebellion protests have ‘ramped up’ climate change discussion

Jonathan Bartley says the demonstrations, alongside strikes by school students, have given much greater emphasis to the discussions on how to tackle global warming.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service on a visit to Kingsthorpe College, Mr Bartley said: “I speak as someone who was arrested and held in a police station at one of these protests. Alongside the school strikes they have been the two things that have ramped up discussion on this issue.”

Mr Bartley joined protesters in Whitehall on his birthday last October, and staged a protest by laying in the road. Officers arrested him for blocking a public highway.

Locally, the Northampton branch of Extinction Rebellion made the headlines recently when they stormed Barclays’ HQ in Brackmills, and sprayed the foyer with black dye to represent what they felt was the organisation’s continued use of fossil fuels.

Five people were arrested by police on suspicion of causing criminal damage and they remain released on bail pending further enquiry.

The nature of such protests has led to some divisive views on the tactics being employed by activists. Mr Bartley added: “It’s a very devolved structure where it’s up to the local groups to do their own thing. I don’t agree with every single thing they do, but the overall impact they have had has been hugely positive.”

During his visit to Kingsthorpe College, where he took questions from Year 7 pupils of an ‘Eco Club’, Mr Bartley also urged the existing Northamptonshire councils to tackle climate change rather than wait a year for the new unitary councils to begin the process of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

He also outlined his hopes that the upcoming government budget would place a greater focus on the environment.

He said: “We are putting forward a Green New Deal. Roosevelt did it in the USA when their economy was tanking. We need to address home insulation, housing, turning agriculture into forestry rather than farming and upgrading our rail infrastructure. We are also a coastal nation so why are we not maximising offshore energy?

“We are hosting COP26 later this year and it’s going to be incredibly embarrassing if the host nation isn’t taking this seriously.”