Organised groups are sabotaging and stealing cameras being installed across London to enforce the expansion the capital’s ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) in the latest example of grassroots resistance to the anti-car policy. The Times has the story.
Campaigns that have sprung up to fight Ulez, low traffic neighbourhoods, clean air zones and 15-minute cities are now uniting with groups of disaffected farmers, truckers and bikers to pile pressure on ministers to reverse what they say is a “war on motorists”.
A new group calling itself U.K. Unites, which claims to bring together campaigns supported by more than 2.5 million people across Britain, is warning the Government to expect civil disobedience on a “huge scale” unless there is a change of approach.
Phil Elliott, 59, the veteran campaigner behind the initiative, said: “People aren’t bluffing. There are just so many things wrong across the country affecting so many people and stressing them out, how could there not be civil disobedience?”
The semi-retired HGV driver said the Ulez expansion might be the event that “makes the country go bang”.
He said: “People just can’t afford new cars or the charges — people like carers who are on crap wages. They’re desperate.”
A group of self-proclaimed “freedom fighters” describing themselves as the “Blade Runners” has already taken down hundreds of cameras in their campaign against the Mayor of London’s plan to extend Ulez to the outskirts of the capital by the end of August.
The extension means that nearly 300,000 motorists in boroughs from Bexley to Enfield will either have to upgrade their vehicles or pay £12.50 a day to drive into London. Sadiq Khan, who was re-elected in 2021, says the scheme will improve air quality and help to save lives, although five Tory-led councils are trying to block the plan, claiming it is unlawful.
Elliott said he believed that if the Ulez expansion went ahead, Britain would witness protests similar to those seen recently in Holland and France. “We’ve got all these people who are fed up being ignored. You don’t need to be in power to get change, you just need pressure and numbers. We aren’t French — but there’s a lot of people saying we should be like the French.”
He warned that his group had the ability to disrupt the food supply chain and said he had already been in contact with Dutch farmers who had caused huge disorder with their protests. He said: “Farming, haulage, food supply — you name it, we cover it. Remember, people need food to eat, and the farmers are working with us.”
“Improve air quality” – even though London’s air is the best it’s ever been.
Might there be an ulterior motive, perchance?
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Blar Blar Blar! Self important tw*ts!
It is not made clear why carbon neutrality is the concern of a group dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion
That’s absolutely clear: Just Like COVID-19 and systemic racism, it’s part of the same pseudo-revolutionary scam by the same (kind of) people. They have some set of policies they want to see implemented (like favoritism towards groups they want associate with), some set of fortunately silent (or even yet unborn) pitiful victims on whose behalf they claim to be speaking (like the poor and oppressed or our childrend and grandchildren) and some ill-defined problem with supposedly apocalyptic consequences which urgently needs to be addressed.
The only sensible way to deal with this is to reject it. The purposes of politics is to improve the present and not, to solve problems of future generations before they even manifest themselves. Future generations will have to look after themselves once the time has come for that, they’re going to face problems we don’t have an idea of yet and will address them with means which haven’t been invented so far. People who are permanently stuck in the middle of the 20th century ought to consider relegating themselves to museums instead of claiming their ever more distant past would really be the future.
If you go back to 1923 it would be impossible to predict what 2023 would look like. —–The Internet. Aeroplanes, Cars, Lighting, Gas central heating, Massive rise in life expectancy, Freedom from preventable diseases, Appliances to bring an end to back breaking labour etc etc etc etc. Trying to pretend you want to decarbonise for the benefit of future generations that will be 3 times wealthier than we are is mealy mouthed eco posturing that tries not to admit what climate change policies are really about, and they are mostly not about the climate. The amount of politicians who bleat about their “children and grandchildren” is vomit inducing. Especially as these same pretend to save the planet people are doing their best to remove the very fuels they will need to have the standard of living their grandfathers and grandmothers currently have. because you cannot power industrial society on wind, sun, hydrogen or tidal. Constant brainwashing today has a whole generation of young people who are clamouring for their own impoverishment and infact they glue themselves to the road and “demand” it.
“Trying to pretend you want to decarbonise for the benefit of future generations that will be 3 times wealthier than we are is mealy mouthed eco posturing…”
On current trajectories and unless we stop the Davos Deviants one thing I can absolutely guarantee is that future generations WILL NOT be three times wealthier than we are, three times poorer most probably.
What is having a “disproportionately harmful effect on the poor and the oppressed” is denying them fossil fuels. One billion people in the third world have no electricity. ——–Just take a moment to contemplate that. ————NO ELECTRICTY.— This is a diabolical disgrace. The EU (climate activists supreme) at one point spent vast sums on the idea that they could cover the Sahara in Solar Panels and import that electricity back into Europe. What a total smack in the face for the worlds poorest. The phony planet savers would deny these poor people access to fossil fuels that would bring them out of the abject misery of a stoneage existence, and then steal their sunshine and cable it all back to the wealthy EU.
And denying them food by closing down productive farms in western countries.
And trying to reduce CO2 (plant food) levels to reduce crop yields, even though this is not possible.
Talking of heights of absurdity, yet possibly sound business sense and an eye for money…
By co-incidence, an advert appeared today in my inbox for Boom Technology, which is seeking share capital and other funding to re-introduce supersonic flight. The brochure ingeniously leverages the customer desire for all things Green, by explaining how really expensive the pre-Green fuel bill was for supersonic flight, yet somehow fudges the issue of how Green fuel is even more expensive than aviation kerosene. Presumably the target customer base is rich Green virtue-signallers who will be persuaded that they are Saving The Planet by flying supersonic, “because it’s Green, innit?” Presumably government employees will also be encouraged to fly the green flag by going supersonic whenever possible, especially if they are Important People.
Assuming this is not mere pamphletware and prospectus fluff, I wonder where the money will actually come from? Will it be from early investors and government funding rather than customers, rather like domestic solar panels and windfarm owners? Who will keep it financially aloft when the Green Mania wears off, like the Railway Mania faded in the late 1840s ?
… which reminds me. Railway Mania was partly the invention of new technology but also partly the result of collusion between MPs and venture capitalists that caused all manner of Acts of Parliament to be passed to support building railways, some brilliantly conceived, some hopelessly economically, some unfortunate gambles, and some outright fraud on investors. Surely MPs these days don’t stoop to taking bribes, or aren’t just gullible dupes, to support massive financial scams perpetrated on small investors and the general public….???
But didn’t I read somewhere that internet servers worldwide use about 10% of all generated electricity, so putting stuff on-line only contributes to the need for that power and despite what claims are made, not all of it is “green”. Please correct me if I’m wrong.