PICTURED: The German 24-year-old lover of Just Stop Oil mastermind Roger Hallam, 56, who he set up Insulate Britain with as a ‘lockdown lovechild’ from their ‘£3,000-a-month home’
- Roger Hallam, 56, met Frieda Luerken, 24, when she was a student at Cardiff
- German Luerken was involved in XR protests in Wales including graffiti attacks
- Couple moved to London to expand XR, start Insulation Britain and Just Stop Oil
- They live in a South London flat. Hallam relies on monthly donations from fans
- Hallam was arrested this week but M25 protests are still continuing today
The founder of the UK’s Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil movements has a lover half his age who helped him ‘organise the coming revolution’ in a London love nest reported to cost £3,000-a-month in rent, it was revealed today.
Roger Hallam, 56, met German Frieda Luerken, 24, when she was a student at Cardiff University around four years ago where she graffitied its buildings because they invested in Shell and BP.
Hallam, who has a daughter the same age as his partner, then co-founded the XR movement with the psychology graduate before they moved in together in London and started Insulate Britain as a ‘lockdown lovechild’.
Hallam recently said online: ‘Myself and my partner Frieda are now in a permanent rented flat. It has a spare room in which to organise the coming revolution. It is perfect. But I need money to afford it’.
As part of their self-styled ‘rebel life’, they have since expanded again to help run Just Stop Oil, the unpopular group causing carnage for ordinary Britons by blocking roads including the M25 as well as smashing petrol stations and shutting down refineries.
The former organic farmer, who blamed collapse of his business on extreme weather, has said previously protesters should be ready to cause disruption through personal ‘sacrifice’. If necessary, they ‘should be willing to die’, he claimed.
Hallam, whose following has been described as ‘cult-like’ and is funded by supporters’ monthly donations, also wants those responsible for climate change to face Nuremberg-style trials.
Roger Hallam, 56, (left) met German Frieda Luerken, 24, (right) when she was a student at Cardiff University around four years ago where she graffitied its buildings because they invested in Shell and BP
Roger Hallam, pictured being arrested at Heathrow in 2019, was held on Sunday night ahead of Just Stop Oil’s M25 protests, which continue today
The Sun has pictured them today walking down a South London street clutching what appears to be a takeaway or leftovers in a plastic tub.
The couple have repeatedly moved over recent years, with Hallam relying on monthly donations from supporters to get by.
In a series of Facebook posts Hallam would beg for somewhere for them to stay. In one he said: ‘I need to leave my present accommodation and need a room for myself and my partner. We both leave early and come back late on most days such is the life of rebels’.
Hallam predicts that climate change will ‘destroy… our ability to grow food’ and then ‘the collapse of our society’. He added: ‘This means war and violence, the slaughter of young men and the rape of young women on a global scale’
And on occasions when he has been in custody, Frieda has taken over his Facebook account to update supporters and also urge them to send him letters.
After one post where she said he was on hunger strike in Pentonville Jail. Admitting she was mistaken, she wrote: ‘Apparently, Roger has not been on hunger strike at all – I suppose that kind of miscommunication happens when you don’t allow someone to speak with anyone, including their lawyer, for more than a week’.
She later wrote: ‘Pentonville doesn’t look like it’s ever been the crown jewel of British prisons but Covid 19 has made the situation even worse. Roger is mostly being denied vegan or vegetarian food. It took him 7 days to get hold of a pillow.
‘For five days, he could only leave the cell one single time for 40 minutes. What’s possibly worst for him is that he can’t access the prison library, meaning that he spends most of his time writing and watching the evening news’.
The couple may have got together around the time Hallam apologised for comments he made describing the Holocaust as ‘just another f**kery in human history’.
In an interview with the weekly Die Zeit, in which he referred to the Holocaust several times, Hallam said: ‘The fact of the matter is, millions of people have been killed in vicious circumstances on a regular basis throughout history.’
The former organic farmer was quickly condemned by Extinction Rebellion groups in Germany, as well as the German government after his comments to a newspaper in the country.
Gridlock caused on the Dartford Crossing this morning by the Just Stop Oil protesters again
Injunction which was supposed to STOP eco-zealots grinding M25 to a halt
National Highways has secured a High Court injunction to prevent Just Stop Oil protesters disrupting England’s busiest motorway – but it appears to have totally failed.
The court has granted a further injunction which aims to stop unlawful demonstrations on the M25, which encircles Greater London, in an attempt to end disruption to the busy road by the environmental group.
It means that anyone entering the motorway and fixing themselves to any object or structure on it, and anyone assisting in such an act, can be held in contempt of court.
They could face imprisonment, an unlimited fine, and the seizure of assets.
The injunction was secured in addition to a court order obtained by National Highways earlier this year that targeted protesters including those from Insulate Britain.
National Highways’ existing injunction covers the M25, the M25 feeder roads and major roads in Kent and around the Port of Dover until May 2023.
Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, tweeted: ‘The Holocaust is more than millions of dead and horrific torture methods. To want to murder and exterminate Jewish women and men is uniquely inhumane. We must always be aware of that so we can be certain: never again!’
The German branch of Extinction Rebellion also said: ‘We explicitly distant ourselves from Roger Hallam’s belittling and relativising statements about the Holocaust. In so doing he contravenes the principles of XR, which does not tolerate antisemitism, and he is no longer welcome in XR Germany.’
Hallam, 56, was taken in for questioning on Sunday night after police were informed that his group were planning to scale motorway gantries on the M25 and bring traffic to a standstill.
Despite him and other ringleaders being rounded up, Just Stop Oil campaigners managed to shut down the roads yesterday and today.
Mr Hallam was not at home when the police arrived to arrest him, but they confiscated evidence and later confirmed that a 56-year-old had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit public nuisance.
His group were planning daily action until Christmas, with one member boasting: ‘It is almost impossible to stop. We will not back down.’
Mr Hallam, who also co-founded Extinction Rebellion said: ‘This is not just another action. It’s potentially the most significant act of civil disobedience in decades.’
He added: ‘If it goes on for two days, fine. It it’s three or four days it is the biggest disruption in British history.’
Hallam’s ego is plastered over his website, which is headlined ‘Farmer Mobiliser Revolutionary’.
The global expansion of Extinction Rebellion (XR), which he co-founded in 2018 and has taken off in dozens of countries, may have gone to his head and – like many ‘revolutionaries’ before him – has even accused his ‘own movement’ of turning against him.
But his grandiose claims, which include citing Martin Luther King and Gandhi as influences, appear to contradict his desire to be seen as ‘just a farmer from Wales’.
Born in Manchester, he moved to Carmarthen where he was an organic farmer for 20 years, before blaming the collapse of his business on a series of extreme weather events several years ago.
Later he researched the history of civil disobedience for a PhD at King’s College London while ‘sleeping in his car’.
The divorcee left to set up Insulate Britain, despite owning a farmhouse which was described as ‘poorly insulated’ in an official energy performance certificate six years ago. It is unclear if he has taken steps to improve the rating.
Other incendiary remarks include stating his desire to ‘bring down all the regimes in the world’, starting with Britain, and his belief that those running society ‘should have a bullet through their heads’.
He currently earns £1,258 from 124 ‘patrons’ who have signed up to make monthly donations to support him.
Ironically, a year ago it emerged that Mr Hallam owns a farmhouse which was described as ‘poorly insulated’ in an official energy performance certificate. His 2,000 sq ft farmhouse in Carmarthen, South Wales, was given the lowest possible energy rating on the certificate. It is unclear if Mr Hallam has taken steps to improve the rating since it was issued seven years ago.
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