Zion Lights, a former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, is now writing articles for the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. It is unsurprising that a middle class member of a middle class movement should find a platform for her opinions in middle class newspapers.

Zion Lights has reneged on her formerly held position on environmental issues to campaign instead for nuclear power, arguing it is the only sustainable alternative. Few members of the Green movement are likely to agree. Zion Lights’ status as the “greenest mother” in the country is likely to be strongly questioned.

Zion Lights shift from radical Green politics to becoming an advocate for the nuclear industry brings her closer to the mainstream of politics and closer to supporting the interests of ordinary working people for whom cheap electricity will have a significant impact upon their household budgets and their well-being.

Extinction Rebellion seem to have little understanding of the difficulties of making ends meet faced by millions of ordinary people. There seems little appreciation that the costs of meeting their demands are costs that would bear most heavily upon the most vulnerable in society.

It is a plain fact that Extinction Rebellion protests hurt working people. Whether it is preventing people doing their work, or obstructing the streets on which people travel,  when it comes to the protests by Extinction Rebellion, it is working people who are hurt.

Affluent people can more easily make adjustments to their diaries to avoid the impact of the protests; affluent people can more easily pay for taxis when public transport is disrupted. Affluent people can more easily cope with the lack of police officers for ordinary duties caused by the protests, their homes will be more secure and will be alarmed; affluent people will more easily deal with such problems as might arise, because they will have the resources to do so. Affluent people will not be unduly worried by not being able to reach their place of work.

The people who will always be hurt most by the Extinction Rebellion protests will be the working people. It will be those who cannot pay for alternatives. Whatever language might be used to justify the protests, it is always the working people who will suffer.

The leaders of Extinction Rebellion might pause to think about the impact of their tactics. Being an overwhelmingly middle class movement, they will have little idea of what it is like to struggle to pay the bills, what it is like to struggle to get to work.

Sooner or later, most of them will have the option of conventional middle class lifestyles, unlike the people who are being hurt.