Tunnel vision of activists hellbent on causing chaos
THEY have already disrupted Premier League football and caused chaos on the red carpet with their protests.
But Just Stop Oil activists show little sign of stopping, with an apparently growing band of supporters willing to glue themselves to roads and pavements in a bid to further their cause.
For the past week, demonstrators have been digging under road surfaces in Thurrock, Essex, aiming to disrupt fuel supplies. Eight people were arrested after they blocked a tanker, deflated its tyres and climbed on board the vehicle on Sunday evening.
It was only a little over six months ago that the campaign group staged its first major protest. Some 30 supporters swarmed the Baftas ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in central London, banging drums, chanting and setting
‘Causing a public nuisance’
off smoke bombs as they demanded an end to new fossil fuel projects.
Then serial protester Louis McKechnie, 21, ran on to the pitch at Goodison Park to disrupt a football match between Everton and Newcastle United, fastening himself to a goalpost with a cable tie. Five activists then stormed the track at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, before two glued themselves to John Constable’s masterpiece, The Hay Wain, at the National Gallery in London.
Just Stop Oil was formed at the end of 2021, with veteran environmental activist Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain, among its leaders. An organiser said there was no precise count of current supporters, but insisted the number was ‘growing week by week’.
Among them is Dr Larch Maxey, 50, an academic who was arrested on suspicion of causing public nuisance after emerging from the tunnel beneath Stoneness Road in Thurrock on Sunday. He had left a colleague in the tunnel but they, too, abandoned the burrow yesterday. A second group in a tunnel under nearby St Clements Way say they are determined to remain until the Government changes its environment policies.
Dr Maxey said: ‘I was in the tunnel for six days. It was very empowering to be able to do something that actually made a big difference. The Government are showing their true colours [by letting through oil tankers over their heads]. They are putting the interests of big oil above ordinary people struggling to pay their bills.’
The group, which is planning mass blockades in central London in October, wants the government to end all new licenses for the exploration and production of fossil fuels in the UK. They said most of their funding comes from the Climate Emergency Fund, an LA-based organisation created by three millionaires in 2019.