ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the concept of direct action and assesses its utilisation by UK political activists across five decades, in the fields of animal rights and environmentalism. It identifies a political tension where the intention of activists is characteristically focused upon achieving immediate campaign aims, ahead of following any legal or democratic structures. Yet in the modern era green and environmental ideals have greater prominence, and indeed greater representation, than ever before. This tension is given added piquancy by the prevalence of narratives of pending ecological collapse, propagated by activists such as Greta Thunberg and organisations such as Extinction Rebellion. These narratives are also, to at least some extent, accepted within government and ruling elites. Whilst direct action pushes at the legal norms of a liberal democracy, this chapter argues that the protests led by Extinction Rebellion witness a conversation that develops between protestors and the authorities, accompanied by a degree of access to elites that has not been afforded to other campaigners who challenge prevailing orthodoxies. This however does not provide a firewall against a radical shift in tactics in the future. Militant animal rights activism faded only when significant political concessions were granted. As the oft-cited date of 2030 approaches by which time activists argue irreversible damage to the planet will occur, these become political campaigns participants must win, or according to their logic, face ecological apocalypse. Such crisis narratives are unlikely to lead to moderate, law abiding activism.
