‘It’s not a crime to understand science': Behind the scenes at Extinction Rebellion

There was plastic aplenty at today’s Extinction Rebellion rally in Parliament Square. Plastic shoes, plastic badges, plastic sunglasses, plastic phone covers. A woman offered me a sticker peeled from a strip.

‘Are they plastic?’

‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Someone gave them to me.’

XR is starting a week of demos and civil disobedience. I arrived just as a sit-down protest opposite Parliament was being cleared by police liaison officers. ‘If you occupy the road you’ll be arrested under Section 14 of the Public Order Act, 1986,’ they said politely.

An XR steward went around quietly advising the tarmac-squatters: ‘Don’t acknowledge what they’ve said. Then they can’t say you knew you’d broken the law.’

But the cops won that one. An hour later the street was clear.

Dozens of rebels were waving tree-saplings in full leaf. They were from beeches, I was told.