Extinction Rebellion has agreed to help guard the London Marathon from protesters on Sunday in a unique deal to protect one of the “crown jewels” of British sport.
The extraordinary arrangement was revealed by event director Hugh Brasher on Wednesday after a meeting with the environmental group, which is expected to attract thousands of people to The Big One festival in Parliament Square this weekend.
“I have just come from a meeting with Extinction Rebellion,” Brasher said. “They will be uniquely asking all their participants to help guard the London Marathon. To do something that is quite unique in their history – to protect what is one of the crown jewels of British sport.
“It is one of the crown jewels because the everyday person is competing and running those 26.2 miles at the time as Eilish McColgan, Sir Mo Farah, and when the greatest women’s endurance race in the history of our sport is taking place.
“The London Marathon is unique,” he added. “We run for clean air. That is so important in what we do. The environment is part of our DNA. And Extinction Rebellion has been very, very clear that they are in a new phase of wanting to engage the general public in a different way.”
However, Brasher admitted that organisers would still be stepping up official security amid fears that other groups may cause similar disruption to that seen at the Grand National and the World Snooker Championship.
Brasher is also hoping to speak to Just Stop Oil in the next 24 hours to persuade them to not to stop a race that raised £58.4m for charity last year. Not only did Just Stop Oil try to intervene in last year’s race but on Monday one of its activists sprinkled orange powder over a snooker table at the Crucible.
“I have not yet had conversations with Just Stop Oil,” he said. “I’m reaching out to them – Extinction Rebellion has given me the people to talk to. It goes back to working together and I will be asking them to help and protect the marathon because of the good it does in society.”
However, it would be hard to completely prevent one of the 750,000 people expected to attend Sunday’s race from causing chaos, Brasher conceded. “We do mitigate for disruption and have done so for years,” he said.
“Whether it was Tamil Tigers in 2009, Extinction Rebellion in 2019 or Just Stop Oil in 2022, there are numerous mitigations we put in and we do those working [with] the Metropolitan police. But it is difficult. You can have one to two people [protesting] and we have 26.2 miles.”
In a statement Extinction Rebellion said: “We have been in dialogue with the marathon organisers since November to make sure we can hold both events at the same time and support one another. We have assured them that we have no intention to disrupt their event. We both acknowledge that the charities and campaigns groups that runners are supporting are unequivocally in favour of acting against climate collapse. In an emergency, as we are, we must find a way to share the London streets as we all want to support charity, but we also need to hold government to account.”
Meanwhile, organisers of the Open have admitted it will be “challenging” to prevent protesters disrupting this year’s championship at Royal Liverpool but have expressed confidence in their security arrangements.
The tournament’s director, Rhodri Price, said the R&A would continue to engage with protest groups before the 151st Open. The event, which runs from from 20-23 July, is set to attract 260,000 spectators – a record for an Open outside St Andrews.
“We’ve seen what’s happened in the last couple of weeks,” said Price, who said the R&A has the capacity to search all bags being brought into the course. “It’s not something we are reactive to, we are very proactive. We have all of the contingency planning, a monthly security group, intelligence cells that gather all this information.
“In fact, they engage with all the protest groups to try to make sure we can provide for them if they were to attend,” he added. “We’ve had several in the past that we were able to accommodate so that they can get their message across in a controlled environment.”
