Just after our last issue went to press, five members of the climate direct action group Just Stop Oil (JSO) received long prison sentences for attending an online meeting to discuss nonviolent disruptive protest. Their 2022 Zoom call had been recorded by a Sun reporter and passed to the police.
Greenpeace UK’s programme director Amy Cameron condemned the sentences, saying: ‘What sort of country locks people away for years for planning a peaceful demonstration, let alone for talking…
Since our last issue, Just Stop Oil has racked up five acquittals and seven convictions – and also claimed victory in their campaign to get the government to stop licensing all new oil, gas and coal projects. That is the policy of the new Labour government. Extinction Rebellion have a new prisoner, Amy Pritchard, as well as big plans for the end of August.
There seems to have been a large-scale pre-emptive police swoop, detaining 27 JSO activists on 28 June, as well as three high-…
The day before the UK general election was called, the government advisor on political violence and disruption published a 294-page report on Protecting our Democracy from Coercion.
The main theme of the report by lord Walney (John Woodcock) was the need for the government, the courts, the crown prosecution service and the police to crack down harder on ‘extreme protest movements’ such as Palestine Action, Just Stop Oil (JSO) and the organisers of the recent Gaza ‘Ceasefire…
Most climate direct action recently seems to have been carried out by Just Stop Oil (JSO), and most of the court cases also involve them, including three acquittals and a professional suspension. Here is some of what’s been happening.
On 15 May, three JSO activists were convicted under the Section 7 of the new Public Order Act 2023, which bans interference with ‘key national infrastructure’, including roads.
Daniel Hall, Phoebe Plummer and Chiara Sarti had marched along a…
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The third para in the last edition of Peace News (PN 2668), under ‘Trials of the Climate Resistance’, begins: ‘Just Stop Oil’s only actions since June have involved slow marches in Exeter and Leeds....’
This is far from accurate. At a rough count, since June there have been two more slow marches in Leeds, two in Manchester, one in Lancaster, one…
Here are some of the climate actions that have taken place in the UK since our last issue. The major event was the acquittal, on 16 November, of the HSBC Nine: XR women prosecuted for £500,000 damage done to windows at the headquarters of HSBC bank in London in 2021.
The other major event has been the continuing Just Stop Oil (JSO) slow walk campaign in London, mostly marching from Trafalgar Square to Whitehall.
JSO claim there have been 612 arrests between 30 October and 22…
Three successes for climate activists occurred in June. On 16 June, the group Feedback was granted the right to a judicial review.
They had challenged the UK national food strategy for not have a plan to cut meat and dairy consumption, arguing that the strategy failed to take into account ministers’ duties to cut carbon emissions as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008.
The high court had refused Feedback a judicial review; the court of appeal has now decided they can…
The longest sentences yet imposed on climate activists were handed down on 21 April, at Southend crown court, when a jury found two Just Stop Oil activists guilty of causing a public nuisance. Judge Shane Collery KC sentenced Morgan Trowland, 40, to three years in prison and Marcus Decker, 36, to two years seven months, to ‘deter’ copycat actions.
The two were arrested last October after they had climbed 200 feet up onto the QEII Bridge over the Dartford Crossing in East London,…
Three days ahead of the coronation of Charles III, the new Public Order Bill, with many restrictions on the right to protest, became law. The anti-monarchist campaign, Republic, and other groups, including Extinction Rebellion, were sent a letter by the home office warning that these new powers had been brought forward to prevent ‘disruption at major sporting and cultural events’.
Describing the letter as intimidatory, Republic announced that it would not be deterred from protesting…
While Extinction Rebellion is temporarily quitting disruptive action to concentrate on mobilising mass demonstrations, Just Stop Oil (JSO) and Insulate Britain (IB) have said they will continue their disruptive action campaigns.
However, they also seem to have largely suspended their actions while engaged in fighting the many court cases arising from previous actions. However JSO has still been organising ‘slow marches’ to hold up traffic in many towns and cities.
Palestine…
One of last year’s most talked-about British direct actions ended with Hannah Hunt (23) and Eben Lazarus (22) walking free from court, with £850 fines. The two Just Stop oil supporters had glued a nightmare version of Constable’s The Hay Wain over the painting itself in the National Gallery on 4 July – and glued their own hands to the frame of the painting (PN 2661).
They were found ‘guilty’ of aggravated trespass and criminal damage at Westminster magistrates court…
On 14 September, dozens of Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists broke an injunction by blockading the Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire. 51 of them were held in prison for at least a week, because they’d been banned from the terminal after a previous action.
Two campaigners, Rajan Naidu, a civil rights advocate, and Dr Sarah Benn, a GP, were given 34-day prison sentences, both for a third breach of the injunction.
Birmingham magistrates gave 28 other activists sentences of up to…
On 23 July, the ‘We All Want to Just Stop Oil’ coalition held a ‘mass swarming march’ in Central London. Groups set off from 11 separate locations, causing much traffic disruption, and all converging in Parliament Square for an authorised symbolic mass sit-down. Real Media, who filmed the event, reported that 1,000 people took part.
The coalition is headed by the climate action group Just Stop Oil (JSO). Other members include CND, Disabled People Against Cuts, Fuel Poverty Action,…
There were a huge number of climate actions in April and May, organised by Extinction Rebellion (XR) and its spin-off, the Just Stop Oil (JSO) coalition.
JSO reported over 965 arrests by 15 April as a result of two weeks of daily blockades of oil terminals and petrol stations all over the country, including in Birmingham, Essex, London and Southampton.
By 4 May, the total had grown to over 1,200 arrests, according to the group.
JSO demands that the government calls a…
