Has Just Stop Oil just stopped?

Environmental campaign group Just Stop Oil (JSO) said it is to cease direct action, with a final protest in Parliament Square on April 26.

The group said: “Just Stop Oil’s initial demand to end new oil and gas is now Government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history. We’ve kept over 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground and the courts have ruled new oil and gas licences unlawful.

“So it is the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets. But it is not the end of trials, of tagging and surveillance, of fines, probation and years in prison.”

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JSO addded: “As corporations and billionaires corrupt political systems across the world, we need a different approach. We are creating a new strategy, to face this reality and to carry our responsibilities at this time. Nothing short of a revolution is going to protect us from the coming storms.”

The statement continued: “This is not the end of civil resistance. Governments everywhere are retreating from doing what is needed to protect us from the consequences of unchecked fossil fuel burning. 

“As we head towards 2°C of global heating by the 2030s, the science is clear: billions of people will have to move or die and the global economy is going to collapse. This is unavoidable. We have been betrayed by a morally bankrupt political class.”

Earlier this month, six protesters, including the group’s co-founder Roger Hallam, won reductions at the Court of Appeal in their jail terms for their roles in Just Stop Oil protests in 2022.

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Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on content provided by PA and a Just Stop Oil press release.