15 September 2021
Press Photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1Kucq-NfhnZLGJWwLx1HX03cWR7M9Y2-m
During rush hour today motorway traffic on the M25 was brought to a standstill for a second time this week by campaigners from Insulate Britain, a new group demanding that the government gets on with the job of insulating Britain’s homes. [1]
89 people from Insulate Britain, which has members from all over the country, blocked roundabouts and a carriageway on the M25 early this morning. Insulate Britain says actions will continue until the government makes a meaningful commitment to insulate Britain’s 29 million leaky homes, some of the oldest and most energy inefficient in Europe. [2]
Insulate Britain: A public statement from the campaign.
“We have to act quickly. What we do in the next three to four years, I believe, will determine the future of humanity”.
Sir David King former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government.
This week scores of people have blocked motorways. The people in cars are angry, they are outraged, they are disgusted. Rightly. What a thing to do. What stupidity. What idiots. So why are we doing it? Why is an 82 year old stepping onto the road, an elderly man with a severe heart condition sitting in front of traffic, alongside mothers with children to care for, builders and electricians who just want to get on with their jobs, students with their whole lives ahead of them?
Why? Because we are angry, because we are outraged, because we feel disgust beyond words. Because we will not stand by and see our families suffer, their livelihoods destroyed and our country betrayed. Never. Never.
For thirty years our politicians have done so very little and now we risk losing all that we love. The world is burning and burning, each year worse than the last. They are disrupting not just today or this week but the next hundred thousand years – for ever. This country is facing the greatest crisis ever and we are told to plant trees and do the recycling. We can take the lies no longer. We are not stupid. We are not children. We will no longer tolerate this dishonesty.
We demand credible action now. Proper jobs for hundreds of thousands of people to start the first real step – to insulate all the homes of this country – which pound for pound gives us the biggest reduction in carbon emissions. It is a total no brainer and yet this government refuses to get on with the job. This is criminal negligence. Sir David King has warned that the future of humanity will be decided in the next three to four years.
In this country, it is legal to disrupt to prevent greater harm, to prevent grotesque wrongdoing, to stop evil from happening. We know our rights and traditions. We are not afraid of going to court to explain to our fellow citizens – to juries – why we are right.
So we have put aside our humiliation, our fury, our despair. We have decided there is something more important than our fears. We have a quiet, iron determination now. We are here to do our duty – to fulfil our responsibilities to our grandparents and their parents who gave their lives to preserve our way of life. To our children and the next thousand generations who will curse us for eternity if we do not act.
We will keep going until the government responds. Until it overcomes its complacency and cowardice and fulfils its first and most sacred duty: to protect the people of this country from harm. All we ask is that it makes a public statement that we can trust – that commits to the first step, to start the insulation of our homes. As soon as this happens we will leave the roads.
In the meantime they can arrest us, they can put us in prison, we know who we are and what we have to do.
ENDS
Press contact: 07737 457105
Email: insulatebritainpress@protonmail.com
High quality photos and video footage available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Kucq-NfhnZLGJWwLx1HX03cWR7M9Y2-m
Website: https://www.insulatebritain.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/insulatebritain
Twitter: https://twitter.com/insulatelove?lang=en
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8N5mAeeCLbD-AFUqtPaF0g
Notes to Editors
[1] About Insulate Britain
Insulate Britain is a new campaign group that is calling on the UK government to put in place policy and funding for a national home insulation programme starting with all social housing.
We demand the Prime Minister and the government to #getonwiththejob, face up to their responsibility and lead our country through the climate crisis.
We are ordinary British citizens with simple and achievable demands to #INSULATEBRITAIN
The UK government must immediately promise to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain
We demand a national home insulation strategy that gives British people the justice they deserve: a future for our loved ones, lower energy bills and safer living conditions
We are scared: our livelihoods are at risk and the futures of our children are uncertain
The Climate Crisis is a threat to all: we demand the government to act now
Our Demands
1. That the UK government immediately promises to fully fund and take responsibility for the insulation of all social housing in Britain by 2025;
2. That the UK government immediately promises to produce within four months a legally binding national plan to fully fund and take responsibility for the full low-energy and low-carbon whole-house retrofit , with no externalised costs, of all homes in Britain by 2030 as part of a just transition to full decarbonisation of all parts of society and the economy.
Further information about Insulate Britain and our demands here: https://www.insulatebritain.com/
Technical Report on home energy efficiency here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HtOQmArzkDxhIYJrv9lBcl9lOUwfKoe7/view