Who knew? Just Stop Oil zealot admits: We’re too white and middle-class
A JUST Stop Oil activist stunned fellow eco-zealots at a key strategy meeting with some home truths – railing against them for being too ‘white and middle-class’.
The critic – called Olive, and sporting pink hair – told them they were living in a ‘student bubble’ and had to attract more people who were not like them or they would die out.
Her sentiments chime with what millions think of the environmental protest group, which is seen as attracting the offspring of the wealthy with scant connection to the everyday realities of most Britons.
An undercover Mail on Sunday reporter infiltrated a weekly strategy meeting held on Wednesday night to discuss upcoming plans. Just Stop Oil leaders boasted they would work with other groups to try to unseat Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer from his Holborn and St Pancras constituency.
And we can reveal that ecoactivists are joining forces today with pro-Palestinian activists to plot major disruption in Central London.
But it was Olive’s plea for the group to become more diverse which made waves, with several of the 50 people on the Zoom call taken aback. She was discussing plans for its new youth division, Youth Demand, and the strategy, revealed last week in the MoS, to increasingly target the rich.
Olive, believed to be in her 20s, told them: ‘One of our key aims in this shift is to break out of this white, middle-class, student bubble that a lot of the time we find ourselves in, and to make our spaces and actions something that all young people want to be a part of.’ A key element of the approach was to work with Muslim groups, and that had to lead to a joint move with Palestine Action.
She said: ‘This month, we’re doing high-profile action to launch our campaign into the headlines.
‘In April, from 7th to 11th, young people from across the country are coming together to take action in London. They’re going to be targeting individuals and institutions who are acting that genocide is acceptable. We’re going to show that we’re on to them and they cannot hide their crimes.
‘We demand politicians stop driving genocide. Oil and gas is genocide. We know what is happening in Palestine is also genocide. Twelve thousand children have been murdered. It’s the world’s first livestream genocide. Our government is insanely complicit in this.’
The group’s plot to topple Sir Keir was also revealed.
Harley Brewer, 30, a former English tutor from Peckham, South London, told them Just Stop Oil founder Roger Hallam was unable to be at the meeting because of a diary clash with other Left-wing organisations to discuss plans to bring down the Labour leader.
JSO and Palestinian activists will meet for a ‘mass civil disobedience action’ in London today. They will be targeting energy companies which, they say, are ‘fuelling Israeli fighter jets, army tankers, and military vehicles used to murder and displace Palestinians.’