Rebellions aren't easy: where do we go from here?

Some flashes of genius in the early days created very high expectations of XR and attracted lots of support. It isn't surprising that thousands of amateurs have ended up muddling along and getting into more of a muddle. As well as scale, there are issues of durability: what can work for three or six months may not work for two years. The pandemic may be giving XR UK an invaluable opportunity to pause and re-group. Fingers crossed!

I'd be interested to explore in more depth what those flashes of genius might have been: seems essential that we learn the 'right' lessons from our successes, as well as our failures. As an example of that not happening, I think a lesson learned from the (mostly successful) Blood of Our Children action was that controversial actions always work, and/or that it's okay to proceed if the face of passionate interal opposition. Clearly a willigness to outrage was a crucial part of our original success, but there was more to it.

What were our original 'core competencies', in the lingo? It might seem a bit clichéd, but having this kind of conversation about April I've found myself thinking that a sense of unity was pretty key. Not so much on the tactical side of things (though also that), but for that 'secret sauce' of positive energy that did so much to sustain and attract. We knew who we were, and so did the public/press. By comparison October felt more impersonal and anonymous, more like a convergence of strangers - but that might have just been me (or the police conditions!)

Thanks for article. Should xr focus in on agents which process the fossil fuel subsidies until lockdown over? Seems like its about highlighting /educating us all on the exact routes/departments that money flows through and could be an exposure done from within locked down conditions. Then later those departments can be targets for in person protests.

Thanks! I get the impression actions are keen to get some plans ready so that we're not starting from nothing when lockdown's fully over. Not something I mentioned in the article but I'm sure part of the answer to our current woes is a straightforwardly successful action to get our mojo back. Fwiw I thought the Durham stuff was part of that developing narrative, but obviously it all got stalled by C-19

This thoughtful article gives me faith in the future of XR. It addresses the issues facing a decentralised democratic movement in a way that previous anti-establishment mass movements have failed to do, to their cost and ours. It is essential that XR remains a network of local and sectional groups rather than a centrally directed organisation, and we are fortunate to have people who recognise the contradictions this involves.

Many thanks - positive feedback for this really helps me keep my faith as well! Part of me was worrying that people might be uninterested in / apathetic to this kind of abstract reflection, which would be a bad sign; I get the impression that the long-running opacity of UKS has done a lot to form a feeling that most rebels can't influence the status quo. Ironically similar to what we're trying to shake people out of w/r/t government policy; in both cases, it seems pretty mission-critical that we can build structures to make people feel heard (without collapsing into total consensus-rule)

Thanks so much for clearly setting out the questions we need to answer. Locally, people are so pre-occupied with the plague it has been impossible to invite a focus on what next. I probably don't understand enough about self organising systems: but i find the lack of any kind of leadership painful: so useful to speak the reality, in this piece, for example,that not everyone can be consulted.

I saw a document which "summarised" the SW input into the national strategy discussion.....except it didn't, it was, rather. a long, indigestible, under prioritised assembly of seemingly random ideas. Please would the chaps, of any gender, put together a set of common questions to seek something close to a consensus on where we go next? And I include the essential need to diversify our base, radically, if we are to carry the cause, as well as how, when and what we might organise to do now, and in the changed future. In love and solidarity.

Thanks! I guess in true socratic style, simply understanding that you/we don't have enough information about organising structures is all we really need for now. Understanding that it's this (and not, for example, a lack of donations or numbers or a lack of zeal in crazy actions) that's doing the most to hold us back. (at least, so I reckon)

Yeah, the strategy process sounded... difficult. We wanted people to tell us what we wanted to do but not tell us what to do (unless it was what we wanted to do). Both the 'we' and the 'people' in question were pretty amorphous. I might try and catch up with where it's at at the moment, but might inclination is to believe that where we go next is more something that will be decided in practice than by any formal processes to settle it; which means it's down to us to practice reflection and more agile organising. (Again the 'us' being a bit unclear here - obviously it's a big ask for all local groups to spontaneously implement agile organising without support. I'm thinking I might try and track down the SOS team next to try and pass on some of their thinking on the education we need in order to be agile again)

Thanks! Yeah, it feels less intuitively useful than organising teams etc. ('the real work'), but I think creating a space/climate for internal debate is seriously overdue; hoping to help that where I can!

Great piece - thanks. I also just read this sort of history of XR to date in the LRB - good accompanying piece to yours: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n08/jeremy-harding/the-arrestables

I feel that in the early days, there was a clear plan as to how XR was going to achieve success - essentially by bringing the state to its knees through mass participation in NVDA. While that didn't quite happen, we did make a sizeable contribution to something significant - a cultural shift and a change in the conversation. I would say we achieved that because we were aiming high, and had a clear guiding vision and strategy. I guess a lot of this came from Roger - "what I've just given you is the keys to social change" as Gail quotes him as saying towards the end of their first meeting. Since Roger has been sidelined (for saying things that I agree were both offensive and damaging to the movement), I feel that guiding vision and strategy is what has been missing from the movement, as was clear from the strategy document that came out earlier this year (I guess it was earlier this year - seems like a lifetime ago).

My wish for the next phase of XR is that we develop an ambitious strategy for how to win. And my fear is that we become just another NGO, doing the kind of things other NGOs do.