Sorry we missed you! – XR North Lakes message to Howden Insurance

Extinction Rebellion’s clear message to those insurance companies which continue to ‘ensure’ climate chaos!

Allan Todd writes: As part of XRUK’s continuing national Insure Our Survival campaign, members of XR North Lakes took part in actions in Manchester and in Preston during the last week in October and early November.

The first action was in Manchester on Thursday 31 October, where XRNL members joined forces with other XR groups from the north of England to take this simple message to insurance companies:

Stop Insuring Fossil Fuels!

This national campaign makes it absolutely clear that the insurance industry could stop the ecocidal fossil fuel industry in its tracks – simply by refusing to insure any new fossil fuel projects, including EACOP and Rosebank.

Although insurance companies such as Axa, Zurich and Allianz have now ruled out underwriting EACOP #StopEACOP, other companies – such as Lloyds and AIG – have not yet done so.

So, to drive this vital message home, XR activists pitched up outside AIG’s Manchester office – and gave out a large number of leaflets to passers-by.

As well as making the public aware of AIG’s position, those leaflets also asked them to contact AIG to request that – as quickly as possible – they issue a public statement that, like other large insurance companies, they will refuse to insure the EACOP project.

However, just to make sure that AIG really did get the message ‘loud and clear’, some XR activists – including some from XR North Lakes – also decided to peacefully occupy the lobby of AIG’s Manchester office.

Then, on Saturday 2 November, XR North Lakes members travelled south again – this time, to take the same message to Howden Insurance’s Preston office, which is usually open on a Saturday morning. However, Howden managers had clearly decided they didn’t want their staff finding out about the ecocidal fossil fuel projects their company insures – so, instead, they decided to shut all their branches that day!

Nonetheless, despite not being able to talk to Howden’s Preston staff, XRNL activists joined up with others – from XR Preston, XR Lancaster, and XR South Lakes – to talk to Preston’s shoppers. As they explained, by insuring new fossil fuel projects, companies such as Howden are complicit in the climate crisis – and the extreme weather events (such as devastating floods) caused by climate breakdown. And, as result of all that, the general public are having to pay ever-higher insurance premiums.

Howden Insurance: friend or…fool?!

The hope is that the entire insurance industry will decide to be the ‘Goodies’, rather than the ‘Baddies’, when it comes to enabling new fossil fuel projects – because, without insurance, major oil and gas companies cannot operate, and thus their climate-wrecking activities can be stopped from going ahead. As one activist explained, the point of this campaign is to put increasing pressure on insurance companies, to get them to Insure Our Survival – not our extinction!

#InsureOurSurvival #StopFloodingUs

——————————————————————————Allan Todd is a member of Left Unity’s National Council, of ACR’s Council, and of Unite Against Fascism; and is an ecosocialist/ environmental and anti-fascist activist. He is the author of Revolutions 1789-1917, Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary, and Che Guevara: The Romantic Revolutionary – and the forthcoming For the Earth to Live: The Case for Ecosocialism