Last Word: Young People and Climate Protest

Sarah Pickard reflects on how young people have become engaged by Just Stop Oil and the climate emergency.

April 2023, Parliament, Square, London. A young person in an orange high-visibility jacket is asking if I’d like to sign up to become a supporter of Just Stop Oil (JSO). Around us, tens of thousands of people are taking part in a peaceful four-day event organised by Extinction Rebellion (XR) to coincide with Earth Day. In front of Big Ben, I’m interviewing young climate and environmental activists about XR’s announcement at the beginning of the year to shift away from disruptive tactics. Ed, one of the JSO activists continues, ‘You could join us on a slow march - they’re not illegal - we are starting them in London next week.’

Fast-forward to mid-July 2023. Just Stop Oil is holding ‘Everyone Week.’ Activists are ‘slow marching’ through London to get ‘ordinary people doing extraordinary things’ - to force an immediate end to fossil fuel extraction. Timed to put pressure on MPs just before the start of the parliamentary summer recess, the action is the climax of three months of smaller-scale slow marches around the country, drawing much mainstream and social media attention. Even more coverage was given to Just Stop Oil’s high profile protest actions: photographs and video clips of activists disrupting the World Snooker Championships, the Premiership Rugby final, the Ashes Test cricket, Wimbledon tennis matches, the BBC Proms and more, made front pages and went viral.

Launched in February 2022, Just Stop Oil was created by founders of Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain, which had also carried out traffic obstruction and road blockade protests. Just Stop Oil first hit the headlines the following month, when activists blockaded oil terminals. But it became known worldwide after Phoebe Plummer (21) and Anna Holland (20) were filmed throwing tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s (glass-covered) ‘Sunflowers’ at the National Portrait Gallery in London, in April 2022. They are still awaiting trial on charges of criminal damage to the picture frame.

Standing in Parliament Square, in April 2023, Anna told me that she had signed petitions, written to her MP, gone on school strikes to no avail, so she joined Just Stop Oil. Before her Van Gogh action, she had already been arrested three times for blocking an oil tanker and roads. Anna underlined that causing disruption is the most effective protest method:

We do lots of disruptive actions like the soup action, like the snooker action, because those are the only ways we can break through into mainstream conversations. That’s when we get into the news on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and it’s then that we can start helping the UK public understand .

While much mainstream media coverage is not sympathetic to Just Stop Oil and public opinion is divided, the movement has undoubtedly raised awareness about fossil fuel extraction. Most people agree with the group’s aims, if not its methods. But, as Alex De Koning, a young Just Stop Oil spokesperson, has said, ‘We are not trying to make friends here, we are trying to make a change, and unfortunately, this is the way that change happens.’

There are signs that British politicians are moving in the same direction. All opposition political parties have committed to oppose new oil and gas licences. Indeed, Rishi Sunak has accused Labour leader Keir Starmer of being in league with ‘eco-zealots at Just Stop Oil’. ‘Not content with disrupting our summer and cherished sporting events, they are essentially leading us into an energy surrender,’ the Conservative Prime Minister said in June, before announcing the following month more than a hundred new oil and gas drilling licenses.

Sunak and his government have cited disruptive protests to make the case for new laws to reduce the right to protest. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 introduced new restrictions on protest. During the Bill’s second reading, in May 2022, then Home Secretary Priti Patel referred specifically to Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil.

The Public Order Act 2023 gives greater powers to police in England and Wales to block disruptive protest tactics. The legislation includes new offences around locking on, tunnelling and obstructing, as well as police powers to ‘stop and search without suspicion’. The act also lowers the threshold for what kind of protests constitute ‘serious disruption’ and introduces the possibility for courts to impose a Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPO) lasting between a week and two years, with a breach constituting a criminal offence. The government’s introduction of all this legislation has led to much criticism, including from several United Nations special rapporteurs, about attempts to repress the right to protest.

Back in April, as I looked over from Parliament towards the memorial to the Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, famous for her disruptive civil obedience to win women’s right to vote, I couldn’t help but wonder how history will judge the disruption caused by Just Stop Oil activists, political reactions to it and young people’s views of institutional politics. As Anna put it, ‘I support Just Stop Oil as a young person because my future is being destroyed by people in power.’