"Just stop oil"

[bigmike20vt]

Personally I would open the motorway and leave them up there for a few days.

I get the sentiment , and didnt .... was it VW a few years ago who when a bunch of protestors glued themselves to the shop floor who just locked up and said "bye" but then got complaints because there was no way the protestors could get food or drink.

however the motorway one is difficult. if they opened it and let them at it, which my lizard brain (or possibly the "gammon nugget ) is certainly in favour of.... but what if one of them falls out, causing cars to swerve, causing an accident.

besides, i do not like what JSO were doing, but i dont want their deaths on my conscience, and besides... it would dent my bonnet

 

[dowie]

It's good that they've got a custodial sentence after they've been able to take the Mickey for so long, in particular things like blocking a motorway (or indeed stopping trains or getting on a runway) are particularly disruptive and much more serious than say walking slowly in a regular street for a few minutes before Police tell them to move on.

A guy blocked trains at Waterloo a few weeks back, I missed/was late for a hospital appointment as a result, luckily Consultant still saw me. By the time I got out of the hospital and walked back to Waterloo the main road was still closed and the guy was still on the bridge, he must have disrupted tens of thousands of people by delaying or stopping train journeys as they couldn't cross the bridge.

That sort of thing is a big difference to throwing a bit of paint around or blocking a minor road for a few minutes, that's just causing a few hours of work for a cleaner or delaying a few dozen or few hundred people for a little bit. Once you're into tens of thousands of people being held up you've got people traveling for hospitals, job interviews maybe funerals, business meetings etc.. or just late for work (and losing pay if paid hourly).

The cumulative impact of all that lost time, all that disruption to so many individuals justifies a more severe sentence and I think that needs to be the precedent set here - make it clear to them that it's not longer a bit of fun and games for some posh middle-class people. If you choose to indulge in some serious disruption then there is going to be a personal cost to you not just a fine you can crowdfund or a suspended sentence you don't care about.

People can then consider what they'll miss in the couple of years they'll have inside, obvs they're not going to actually serve 4 or 5 years, I suspect they maybe won't even need to serve half of it given how full prisons are right now but it will still be a significant blow to be locked up for a year or maybe up to two.

 

[Uther]

Police should have just set up a giant trampoline under the bridge and hosed them off. Anyone who didn't fall is safely tied on and they just reopen the motorway and leave them there.

 

[hurfdurf]

I think it’s clear that big oil, and it’s capitalist elites, are controlling the courts at this point.

Pedophiles, violent muggers, all have been given suspended sentences. Peaceful protest against the broken system that is our democracy, and you get 5 years? It’s utterly transparent.

 

[dowie]

I think the UK has environmental protesters have no choice now but for extremism, and welcome the bloodshed followed by the cries of “but why couldn’t they do it peacefully?!?” from the centrist liberals.

I don't fancy their chances, have you seen the angry interactions with some of the drivers and white van men? It's often some scrawny student types or middle-aged Guardian readers and a few OAPs and if anything the thing protecting them right now is they don't escalate and don't resist, if they start pushing and shoving or trying to fight then some of those drivers are not going to be too pleasant.

 

[Uther]

I don't fancy their chances, have you seen the angry interactions with some of the drivers and white van men? It's often some scrawny student types or middle-aged Guardian readers and a few OAPs and if anything the thing protecting them right now is they don't escalate and don't resist, if they start pushing and shoving or trying to fight then some of those drivers are not going to be too pleasant.

I've said it before, I think they get the police there to protect them from the public, not the other way round.
It'll end badly one day when they get in the way of the wrong people and the police don't get there in time.

 

[Semple]

I think it’s clear that big oil, and it’s capitalist elites, are controlling the courts at this point.

Pedophiles, violent muggers, all have been given suspended sentences. Peaceful protest against the broken system that is our democracy, and you get 5 years? It’s utterly transparent.

I'm not sure I'd class closing down a major motorway as "peaceful".

I do feel the sentence is quite strong for the crime committed though, and it's pretty clear they were made an example of to put other activists off potentially similar protests with the message that you too will do 5 years inside.

 

[hurfdurf]

I don't fancy their chances, have you seen the angry interactions with some of the drivers and white van men? It's often some scrawny student types or middle-aged Guardian readers and a few OAPs and if anything the thing protecting them right now is they don't escalate and don't resist, if they start pushing and shoving or trying to fight then some of those drivers are not going to be too pleasant.

I don’t think they would ever chose direct stand and bang conflict, that would be foolish.

The unibomber couldn’t fight his way out of a paperbag, but his reign of terror was of a truly epic proportion.

These are the educated upper middle class who dislike violence, but their peaceful nature cannot continue, so they either stop, or they start mailing anthrax or leaving nail bombs at petrol stations. It’s appalling that we have lost democracy to the degree that violence is now the only answer, but now the spycop enquiry has shown the state is using its violent wing to subvert political activism against its will, I don’t see that they have any other choice.

I just hope there is an alternative answer.

 

[hurfdurf]

Bear in mind, the judge who gave out the sentence also decided against jailing a police officer who had sex with a drunk woman whilst on duty giving her a lift home.

This is the level of corruption they are up against.

2 asylum seekers just got given community service for a violent robbery… not even kicked ont of the country, never mind jail…

 

[dowie]

These are the educated upper middle class who dislike violence, but their peaceful nature cannot continue, so they either stop, or they start mailing anthrax or leaving nail bombs at petrol stations. It’s appalling that we have lost democracy to the degree that violence is now the only answer,

Labour won a landslide election and did exactly what this protest group has asked for:

The group protested to "just stop oil" and the government just did that, so now what?

Miliband overrules officials with immediate ban on new North Sea oil

Energy Secretary faces dispute with oil companies as he seeks to block exploration

www.telegraph.co.uk

In reality, their cause is just a gimmick, their real agenda is some leftist degrowth nonsense and hatred of capitalism. For the same reason various "greens" hate nuclear energy as it means clean reliable energy to carry on being productive with rather than their degrowth plans. They hate any other productive solutions too, climate engineering, carbon capture. They "just" wanted to stop oil and when that demand has been met they're just going to carry on with their usual nonsense anyway. IIRC it was something about home insulation people were blocking roads for previously.

 

[hurfdurf]

Labour won a landslide election and did exactly what this protest group has asked for:

The group protested to "just stop oil" and the government just did that, so now what?

There are far more demands than that.

 

[Rroff]

Russia defo runs its economy on fossil fuels but trying to blame CC protests on Russia seems very strange to me

Russia has been involved in hybrid and subversive warfare against the West for some years, seeding stuff like this to cause disruption and division. A lot of what is going on with groups like JSO is straight out of that playbook. That isn't to say all activism of this nature has Russian hands behind it, but some of them show all the hallmarks.

 

[Rroff]

I’m no JSO fan but standing in the middle of the M25 IS a peaceful protest whichever way you look at it.

I wouldn't call that peaceful - only if you don't look at the bigger picture of it - unmanaged blockages of high speed roads like that can cause knock on effects creating avoidable accidents of innocents, potentially hold up critical emergency service responses, etc. it is stupid and witless not thinking of others form of protesting, some might justify it by invoking the greater good and saying the situation is desperate but personally I say there are still many ways to effectively protest, even disruptively, which don't have potential for resulting in even if unintentional tragedy.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I wouldn't call that peaceful - only if you don't look at the bigger picture of it - unmanaged blockages of high speed roads like that can cause knock on effects creating avoidable accidents of innocents, potentially hold up critical emergency service responses, etc. it is stupid and witless not thinking of others form of protesting, some might justify it by invoking the greater good and saying the situation is desperate but personally I say there are still many ways to effectively protest, even disruptively, which don't have potential for resulting in even if unintentional tragedy.

None of that makes it something other than a peaceful protest.

Protests by definition are disruptive, it’s not a protest unless there is some form of disruption.

The opposite to peaceful is violent, nothing you have mentioned can be categorised violent.

All of the same points are true when doctors go on strike over pay. Striking is a form of protest and causes huge disruption to the health service, by design.

 

[Rroff]

None of that makes it something other than a peaceful protest.

Protests by definition are disruptive, it’s not a protest unless there is some form of disruption.

The opposite to peaceful is violent, nothing you have mentioned can be categorised violent.

All of the same points are true when doctors go on strike over pay. Striking is a form of protest and causes huge disruption to the health service, by design.

When you do something which quite foreseeable has the potential to cause a violent outcome I don't class that as peaceful protesting, not at all. Playing in high-speed traffic is NOT peaceful protesting.

It is also quite foreseeable it can hold up critical emergency services responses potentially causing avoidable deaths, etc. so again NOT peaceful protesting.

All of the same points are true when doctors go on strike over pay. Striking is a form of protest and causes huge disruption to the health service, by design.

I wouldn't call that peaceful either if the strike had potential to cause harmful disruption to the health services putting people's lives on the line. There may be a point where they don't have an option but that still doesn't make it a peaceful protest.

 

[dowie]

There are far more demands than that.

That was it, that was the big core demand!

That was what they'd say when people were like:

The public: "But people still need to use their cars"
Just Stop Oil: "no, no, we just want them to stop *new* oil exploration in the North Sea"

Just Stop Oil - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Just Stop Oil is a British environmental activist group primarily focused on the issue of human-caused climate change. The group aims to convince the British government to commit to ending new fossil fuel licensing and production using civil resistance, nonviolent direct action, traffic obstruction, and vandalism.

The government announced they were doing exactly that 7 days ago...

So what is all this emotive stuff about?

so they either stop, or they start mailing anthrax or leaving nail bombs at petrol stations. It’s appalling that we have lost democracy to the degree that violence is now the only answer,

Violence is the *only* answer a week after the government just did the main thing they were demanding? What on earth are you smoking?

 

[b0rn2sk8]

When you do something which quite foreseeable has the potential to cause a violent outcome I don't class that as peaceful protesting, not at all. Playing in high-speed traffic is NOT peaceful protesting.

It is also quite foreseeable it can hold up critical emergency services responses potentially causing avoidable deaths, etc. so again NOT peaceful protesting.



I wouldn't call that peaceful either if the strike had potential to cause harmful disruption to the health services putting people's lives on the line. There may be a point where they don't have an option but that still doesn't make it a peaceful protest.

I think your definition of what’s peaceful is out of calibration with the definition of the word. We’re probably not going to agree on that point so we might as well leave it there.

I think we both agree it’s disruptive to say the least.

Perhaps we can both agree that it’s not violent?

 

[Rroff]

I think your definition of what’s peaceful is out of calibration with the definition of the word. We’re probably not going to agree on that point so we might as well leave it there.

I think we both agree it’s disruptive to say the least.

Perhaps we can both agree that it’s not violent?

Don't think we are going to agree but given the very foreseeable potential to cause harm I don't see it as non-violent, even if it is less direct than some forms of violent protest.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

The plan was to gridlock the M25 by climbing gantries at strategic locations around its circumference. Like the major intersections. Not only endangering their lives but those of the cops and fire brigade and ambulances.
The number of excess deaths through not making it to hospital or gaining access to drugs could have been significant. But yada yada excess deaths through traffic pollution etc. Pollution is always worse in high congestion.
Apart from any other consideration it is anarchy and not following due process. We live in a democracy and that is no excuse to take the law into your own hands however grievous you personally percieve the threat to be.

I wouldn't dispute a word of that, and I have absolutely no time for their methods even if I do agree with the sentiment, but the 4 & 5 year sentences are OTT. No wonder prisons are in crisis; we need to modernise the justice system and find better punitive methods.

 

[dowie]

I wouldn't dispute a word of that, and I have absolutely no time for their methods even if I do agree with the sentiment, but the 4 & 5 year sentences are OTT. No wonder prisons are in crisis; we need to modernise the justice system and find better punitive methods.

When they're fanatics who see what they're doing as some sort of essential righteous cause then other methods don't really work, suspended sentences with a warning not to do it again are a nothing burger and fines can handled simply by crowdfunding from their supporters.

Maybe some community service sweeping the local park but they love that stuff anyway and it's not going to dissuade any of them from blocking roads. Literally locking them up is the way to stop them when it comes to the more extreme cases such as blocking motorways.

What better punitive methods would you suggest? I can think of maybe a curfew and tagging but there's nothing to stop them from cutting the tag off and going to block a motorway anyway.