Extinction Rebellion splinter group Insulate Britain has again indulged in fantastical delusions of significance, after comparing itself to American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr.
The Insulate Britain spokesman made the remarks after nine activists were convicted on Wednesday of contempt of court for breaching the injunction against protesting on the M25 motorway and jailed for between three and six months, with the judge insisting all eco convicts serve at least half of their time.
Following sentencing, one of the group’s spokesmen quoted a letter from the criminals, which claimed that the government had failed in “protecting the people of this country from climate collapse” by refusing to drastically cut carbon emissions, and which appeared to present the group in the context of other historical social justice movements.
“To the public we say, no one is coming to save you. In the past, when governments have failed to protect their people the right thing to do is to highlight this injustice, breaking the law if needed, this is what the suffragettes and Martin Luther King did and it is what Insulate Britain has done,” the spokesman said.
“You have a choice. To act, to come and join us help change the tide of history, or to be a bystander and be complicit in enabling genocide,” the letter added.
This is not the first time Insulate Britain has entertained fantasies of their own importance, after having compared themselves to Winston Churchill opposing Hitler years before the outbreak of World War Two.
While Insulate Britain thinks highly of itself, it has levelled some of the most damning comparisons to its alleged adversaries, claiming last month that those sceptical of the group’s tactics were like Hitler appeasers and traitors.
Spokesman Liam Norton had told media: “What they were called was appeasers, because they said Hitler wasn’t a threat. They said that they weren’t a threat at the time, and you’re suggesting the UK shouldn’t reduce emissions.
“To be honest with you, people that take that position in the future, within a few decades, they’ll be seen as cowards and traitors to this country.”
The group had gone even further in their bizarre rhetoric and had been criticised for appearing to not care about those whose health may be impacted by stopping traffic on the UK’s busiest roads, with Mr Norton implying that sometimes, you have to allow people to die for the greater good.
“You know Turing in The Imitation Game? They had to allow British soldiers to die because if they’d have stopped every single attack through cracking the Enigma code, the Nazis would have found out that they were cracking the code. So they had to allow people to die,” Norton had said.