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28-04-2025
LONDON: British environmental activist group Just Stop Oil has held its final demonstration in London, ending three years of high-profile climate protest stunts as they moved their focus away from civil disobedience.
Yesterday everal hundred supporters walked peacefully through the centre of the UK capital, from parliament to the headquarters of oil and gas giant Shell, where they removed their familiar high-vis orange vests.
The group mainly campaigned for the United Kingdom to end the extraction of oil and gas by 2030 and had become one of the country’s best-known protest organizations.
In March, the group announced it would halt its headline-grabbing protests, arguing it had accomplished its initial aim of stopping the UK approving new oil and gas projects.
More than 3,000 Just Stop Oil protesters have been arrested since it was founded in 2022 and 11 of them are currently in jail, including 58-year-old co-founder Roger Hallam. Five more are due to be sentenced in May.
Stunts by its activists included targeting Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting with tomato soup and daubing the historical landmark Stonehenge with orange paint powder.
They also disrupted theatre and sporting events, including tennis matches at Wimbledon.
Over the years, the actions have drawn condemnation from politicians, police and some sections of the public but the group claimed a victory after the UK Labour government halted new oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea.
Labour has distanced itself from Just Stop Oil, however. Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticized its actions and said protesters should face the full force of the law.
Mel Carrington, a spokesperson for the protest group, said that while its actions had been “very effective to get press attention”, the re-election of climate change sceptic Donald Trump as US president had made their work more difficult.
“The repression does make it more difficult to mobilize, and the external environment has changed,” she told media.
Just Stop Oil has been coy about its future strategy, but has said it will “continue to tell the truth in the courts, speak out for our political prisoners and call out the UK’s oppressive anti-protest laws”.
“In the background, we are working with other (similar) groups… to develop a strategy for what comes next,” said Carrington.
Group triggers specific new protest laws
One thing it did change is the law.
Policing commentator Graham Wettone tells us; “obstruction of the highway, obstruction of rail networks for example, these are specific offences now.
“It’s given the police more tactics, more methods, more offences they can consider, even stopping and searching somebody who may have something to either lock themselves on or glue themselves to something.”
Emma Smart was held in prison for her activism with both Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil.
“The high-vis might be going away,” she tells me but “we aren’t.”
“These people aren’t going anywhere, we are still committed, dedicated, terrified by the failings of this government and governments around the world.”
She hopes for a time of reflection before it returns in a new form but says the need for climate activism is stronger than ever. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
