Just Stop Oil vow to keep causing disruption – and have this message for people who are affected

Just Stop Oil protesters are the latest group of climate activists to hit the headlines by gluing themselves to things and delaying traffic.

The group was born in the first few months of this year – out of disillusionment with 2021’s COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow and in response to the government decision to expand oil and gas production in the North Sea and lift the ban on fracking.

Starting to take “direct action” in April, campaigners “locked on” to roads, tankers and other infrastructure at 10 oil facilities across Essex, Hertfordshire, Birmingham and Southampton, which led to hundreds of arrests.

But in recent weeks, they have expanded to disrupting sport fixtures, vandalising artwork and public institutions like New Scotland Yard.

Protests at oil facilities ‘didn’t work’

“It didn’t work,” Just Stop Oil (JSO) spokesperson Emma Brown told Sky News.

“When we did the most obvious, common sense thing of targeting oil companies – that didn’t break through.

“Activists across the world have been taking direct action against oil and gas companies for decades. But they’re out of sight of the public eye and the media.

“We’re causing visible disruption in our capital city. Disruption works because it puts pressure on the police, which puts pressure on the government.”

When two JSO activists scaled the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge 200ft above the Dartford Crossing this week, it had to close for 36 hours and caused six-hour delays around much of the M25.

One of them, Morgan Trowland, a 39-year-old civil engineer, said the demonstration was helping to “reach the social tipping point we so urgently need” on climate change.

And when asked about those who had been disrupted, he added they should “have a thought and empathy” for the 33 million people displaced by floodwater in Pakistan caused by melting ice caps this year.

Ms Brown, who got involved with JSO in March, said it’s “really unfortunate people get caught up in the disruption” and there’s “no such thing as a perfect protest that doesn’t offend anyone”.

She stressed the group have a “blue light policy” whereby they let emergency services vehicles through traffic blocks.

Asked whether they are disrupting people’s daily lives to make them see the gravity of the climate crisis, she replied: “I’m not going to be patronising and say to people ‘we’re trying to change your mind’.

“We’re trying to raise this in the public consciousness. And that happens in the media, by literally seeing disruption on the streets of London.”

Experts say protests get visibility – but no support

Professor Lorenzo Fioramonti, director of the University of Surrey’s Institute for Sustainability, said JSO may have succeeded in getting publicity – but that won’t translate into changes in policy.

“When it comes to this sort of activism, we need to differentiate between garnering visibility and garnering support,” he told Sky News.

“What they’re trying to achieve in putting climate change on the national debate is commendable.

“But the strategies they are using are backfiring in terms of garnering support. And advancing the ecological cause only happens when the public is on your side.”

The protest that appears to have generated the most criticism is when two women threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery in London.

Professor Fioramonti commented: “To be successful, what you’re trying to stop has to be the enemy.

“The price of what you do has to be paid by the opponent – in this case the oil and gas companies. What doesn’t work is when that is paid by someone else, then the lay person won’t understand it.”

It also risks “dividing the ecological front” and “tainting the cause” of groups who are engaged in constructive dialogue with governments, fossil foil producers and big business, he added.

“The public may rear-end their view of the overall cause because they think all these groups are the same.”

But Ms Brown insists “that initial outrage” over the Sunflowers is what is having a real impact.

“We wouldn’t have had that impact if we just calmly explained the rationale behind moving to a clean energy future.

“We have to do something – and I would advise anyone who is angry or annoyed at us – or thinks they could do better – to come and join the group.”

Francois Gemenne, researcher on climate governance at the University of Liege and lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, argues that we are “beyond the point” of needing publicity.

“Actions like this are a thing of the past,” he told Sky News.

“The question is how to mobilise people to take action and to help them to do that.

“Getting media attention for the sake of media attention is a little problematic.”

He added that many of his peers are concerned copycat movements could happen across the global south where people on the frontline of climate change are less able to cope with infrastructural damage or disruption caused by protests.

Gave up library job to ‘mobilise full-time’

Having formed off the back of talks at universities across the country, JSO is now thought to have thousands of supporters.

Among them are a team of people who focus on organising protests – and another who deal with strategy. Several hundred are currently involved in the protests themselves.

Ms Brown, a 31-year-old artist from Glasgow, is part of a small group being funded by JSO to work for them full-time.

She signed up after being handed a leaflet saying “We’re f*****. Come and see what we’re going to do about it” while working at a university library.

Convinced, in April she took part in blockades of oil refineries in Birmingham and London, as well as gluing herself to the frames of famous paintings in Glasgow.

Two months later she quit her job to “mobilise full-time”, claiming her rent, bills and living costs from JSO after they secured thousands in funding from the US-based Climate Emergency Fund.

“Now I do this 50 hours a week,” she said.

“I do talks around the country, leafleting in the street, non-violent direct action training – talking about the principles of non-violence and preparing people for the hostility we might face.”

She isn’t formally employed but is given an allowance, she added.

“It’s just enough to live on. The media likes to portray us as rich kids – but we’re not – we couldn’t do this if we didn’t have any sustenance.”

Another group necessary to ‘tell government exactly what to do’

Just Stop Oil’s “civil disobedience” strategy is similar to the ones of fellow climate groups Extinction Rebellion (XR), Animal Rebellion and Insulate Britain.

Many XR activists are now involved in JSO.

“XR isn’t part of Just Stop Oil,” Ms Brown explained. “But there are XR people in the group.

“The Insulate Britain campaign has ended – so some people from there have moved on to be part of this campaign.”

Quizzed on why separate groups keep forming, she added: “With XR governments have declared climate emergencies, but they’re not doing what they need to do.

“So we’re having to tell them exactly what to do – which is ‘Just Stop Oil’ and ‘Insulate Britain’. Having focused campaigns mean we can get those demands won.”

JSO says it wants a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy in the UK over the next eight years – and will stop all protests when this is secured.

COP26 agreed on various targets to “phase them down” between 2030 and 2050.

Until their demands are met, JSO has daily action planned throughout this month, which results in around a dozen or so activist arrests each time.

In response, the government is pursuing a new Public Order Bill to crack down on demonstrations that target essential infrastructure, creating bigger risks of being arrested, fined or imprisoned for JSO members.

‘Listening’ to minority groups over arrest risks

Ms Brown has been detained on four occasions.

Many have criticised JSO and its predecessors for their relative privilege of being able to “just get arrested” without any serious, long-term consequences.

Ms Brown says such criticisms are “very valid” and the group is “listening to people of colour”.

But she added: “I think that kind of criticism is often levelled at us by people who also have that privilege but aren’t doing anything about the climate crisis.

“I would take umbrage with people who are also white and middle class – and trying to discredit us.

“I’m a mixed-raced woman from a lower-middle class background.

“If I get arrested, I do have family support, I have people’s sofas I could stay on, I wouldn’t be made homeless.

“But I had to look deep into myself to establish if I could do this – and I think more people need to do that.”

So what’s next for Just Stop Oil?

Ms Brown says the group is “definitely continuing”.

But beyond October’s month of action, “conversations are still being had” about what else is on the agenda.

There is likely to be coordinated action around November’s COP27 in Egypt, but nothing concrete yet.

“It’ll be a year on since COP26 and they’ve done nothing. It’s outrageous. So we’re not going away,” she says.