Just Stop Oil: Policed to Extinction....?
Just Stop Oil (JSO), the high-profile climate campaign group most notorious for incendiary protest stunts like covering world-famous works of art with soup and gluing themselves to roads, has acknowledged the suspension of its direct-action campaign.
The movement says that its flagship call, a moratorium on granting new oil and gas licenses, is now government policy, a watershed achievement in their language. "One of the most successful civil-resistance movements of recent history," JSO stated.
Maybe this is a case of high-publicity disruption stunts working...? They got plenty of hate but also plenty of media attention, which may have lead to politicians taking the climate crisis seriously.
And there have been some real policy shifts. Ministers have pledged to consult on bringing an end to new oil and gas licensing, and JSO can take pride in keeping the issue at the top of the agenda.
Or maybe hold the champagne...?
However, there is no firm commitment to ending the expansion of fossil fuels. Labour, for example, has contracted out on ongoing projects such as the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields and remains behind airport expansions.
The real reason for JSO's hiatus is perhaps a little more to do with exhaustion than victory.
Since new legislation was tabled in 2022 to criminalize disruptive protests, several JSO activists have been jailed. Top members, including co-founder Roger Hallam, are now in prison, some with FIVE YEAR sentences...
The pubic have little sympathy, I mean most of us don't give a shit about soupy artwork, but sitting in a traffic jam on the M25.... NOT the way to garner popular appeal!
Though the group claims it is not yet done, its campaign did not end on its own terms—it's been, in some description, "policed to extinction."
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The environment is one of the most important topics for me and my family. We don't own a car, we compost, recycle, buy upcycled and avoid single-use plastic. I've never found sympathy in this ridiculous group. I've never looked them up to learn who they are or what they're about. Good riddance.
Resistance/Boycot is useful!
Ironically, declaring victory to save face is a Trumpian tactic.
Here in the Netherlands, Extinction Rebellion (XR) is still regularly blocking a highway. But that's near the endpoint of the A12 in The Hague, next to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Much ink has been spilt about how these protesters were treated compared to farmers who blocked or slowed down traffic across the country.
Maybe no more funding from USAD would be closer to the truth.
The cops were too soft on these middle class soap dodgers from the shires. The courts pretty useless too. Think Miliband's days are numbered, his eco nazi ideology will be long buried (hopefully) when what is left of the British steel industry is brought into public ownership.