​As Just Stop Oil disbands, how will we remember the radical climate activist group?

Good morning.

This weekend Just Stop Oil put down their soup cans, hung up their hi-vis and disbanded, saying that now the UK government had stopped extracting oil and gas from the North Sea, they had achieved what they set out to do back in 2022.

On Saturday the group staged a “last day of action” in London, where a couple of hundred banner-wielding activists brought streets to a partial standstill (to, of course, the fury of drivers and bystanders).

In the three years they were operational, JSO pioneered a controversial, highly visible and often reviled brand of climate protest. Often it involved throwing things – the aforementioned soup at precious artworks, paint at national monuments – but they also developed a strong line in disrupting major sporting or cultural events and blocking many, many roads.

A number have paid a high price for their activism, serving lengthy sentences under draconian new anti-protest laws hurriedly passed – in part – to put an end to their disruptive actions. Yet, the group are unlikely to be forgotten. And this was perhaps the point.

For today’s newsletter, I talked to Guardian environment reporter Damien Gayle, who has covered the group from the very beginning, about the end of the JSO era, whether they are right to claim victory – and what will come next.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘Though they were vilified, they kept the climate emergency in the public’s mind’

Since Just Stop Oil came to the public’s attention, the activist group has courted notoriety for their radical tactics and willingness to go to extreme lengths to push their demands into the public consciousness.

In a manifesto published on its website, JSO set out their argument that inaction on the destruction of our climate was akin to complicity. The extraction of new gas and oil resources, the group said, is “an obscene and genocidal policy that will kill our children and condemn humanity to oblivion”. They added that “if you are not in resistance you are appeasing evil” and that “it is time to put everything aside, we are going into resistance with or without you”.

In their brief run, Just Stop Oil were undoubtedly hugely influential, but what will be their legacy?

What Just Stop Oil were trying to achieve

Just Stop Oil evolved out of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement, when the most radical fringes of XR splintered away to form their own brand of climate activism.

“It was clear that while XR had been spooked by the idea they could be alienating people, there were those within that movement who wanted to double down on the disruptive approach and adopt a more radical shift in tactics,”Damien Gayle told me shortly after the group’s last action on Saturday.

Though committed to the traditional non-violent and accountable philosophy of environmental activism, JSO wanted to move from civil disobedience to a policy of “civil resistance”. Its first wave of protests directly targeted oil terminals in the UK. JSO campaigners climbed fences, glued themselves to infrastructure and prevented trucks picking up oil.

“They very nearly caused a real crisis in distribution of fuel and petrol in southeast England,” says Damien. “But the problem was that these terminals were in very sparsely populated areas so nobody really clocked.”

Damien says the group – who had learned sophisticated PR tactics at XR – were swift to realise that they had to switch to tactics that would get themselves noticed. This heralded the start of what Damien describes as “iconoclastic cultural protests” that became JSO’s signature look. These were often audacious, very public stunts intended to disrupt, upset and – crucially – ensure plenty of attention – think red soup on Van Gogh’s golden sunflowers, orange powder paint on Stonehenge.

“It was all very colourful and visual,” says Damien. “They wanted to get noticed, to get photographed, that was the point, they didn’t care if it upset people.” Their activism was met with incandescent fury. Politicians called for them to be designated a terrorist group and they were branded a ‘mob’ and eco-loons in the press. A 2023 poll found that just 17% of the public approved of the group.

“Yet thanks to them the climate crisis appeared in the pages of the rightwing press for years and each one of those articles would quote their spokesperson in full,” Damien points out.

“Even though they were ridiculed and vilified, they kept the climate emergency in the public’s mind. Everyone knew what they were calling for and they reached a vast constituency of people.”

How have they changed climate activism?

Although the group has claimed victory, it is “impossible to draw a straight line between their actions and the government stopping oil and gas extraction,” says Damien. “I think it’s fair to say they were one, important stream of a confluence of factors that brought this to pass.”

What has changed radically in the years they were operational is the rabidly hostile legal environment in which climate activists and other protesters are now operating in compared to before.

The UK’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2021 and the Public Order Act 2022 have transformed the relationship between protesters and the state, handing police extensive new powers to curtail protests and criminalising a range of protest activities. Since then, the number of environmental activists arrested in the UK has reached nearly three times the global average.

“Six years ago, when Just Stop Oil formed, you might be arrested and get a slap on the wrist from a magistrate for blocking a road. Now you could be charged with interfering with key national infrastructure and serve a significant jail sentence,” says Damien.

How much JSO’s actions – and the levels of public and media outrage they provoked – actively contributed to the draconian nature of the anti-protest laws is up for debate. In 2023 the Met Police said the group’s protests cost almost £20m, which was used as a reason to rush tough legislation through.

There are now 11 JSO members behind bars, some serving significant sentences for their non-violent activism. “Showing people just how far they are prepared to go to save the planet, even if it means going to prison, is pretty central to their objectives,” says Damien. “But many have paid a really high price for their activism.”

What comes next?

While JSO has claimed ultimate victory, it could be argued that they have effectively been policed out of action. The end of JSO, says Damien, could also be the end of the kind of climate activism where people stick around to be held accountable for their law-breaking activities. Future movements are more likely to go more underground.

“You’re not going to see people prepared to put themselves out of action by sitting in a jail cell for years, when they believe we don’t have much time left,” he says.

Over the past years, groups like Shut the System have emerged, which are carrying out attacks on the offices of finance and insurance companies, sabotaging their fibre optic cables.

“We’ve started seeing trains of coal being set on fire, arson attacks on cement factories, full-on riots between environmental protesters and the police,” says Damien. “I think we’ve got a long way to go in terms of how bad things can get but in the next few years I think we’ll look back and what JSO did, blocking roads and throwing washable paint onto buildings, will seem mild,” he says.

One criticism of the group is that its tactics have proved so unpopular with the general law-abiding public that it could turn people away from climate activism altogether.

Yet Damien believes that history will be kind to JSO. “Even if their tactics were controversial, I think they will come to be seen as a group of people who tried to wake us all up,” he says. “Even though most of us want action on the climate emergency, they were prepared to actually do something about it.”

What else we’ve been reading

Here’s a fascinating column from John Harris on something I was always afraid was true: as more of us rely on navigation apps to chart our path through the world, more of us are losing the ability to direct ourselves – and getting lost as a result. Charlie Lindlar, acting deputy editor, newsletters

Jonathan Jones explores how Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes could provide inspiration and humility for the cardinals heading into the papal conclave. Annie

On a related note to John’s column, the Atlantic has a wonderful piece from Andrew Federov investigating a simple but revealing question about our over-structured lives and low trust in each other: does anyone hitchhike any more? Charlie

The stories of real-life Lassies rescuing humans in distress is an excellent addition to the Guardian’s special guide on living with dogs. Annie

Who among us hasn’t bashed through a podcast series … and then been left unsatisfied by the rubbish final episode? Hannah J Davies is here to help with a list of podcasts that stuck the landing. (Ironically, it does not include Stick the Landing, a fun but short-lived podcast that looked at the best and worst TV finales). Charlie

Sport

Football | Liverpool secured a record-equalling 20th league title in a stunning debut season for Arne Slot after beating Tottenham 5-1 at Anfield. The 46-year-old, who took on the seemingly unenviable task of succeeding Jürgen Klopp last summer, becomes the first man in Liverpool’s history to win the championship in his debut season.

Athletics | Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe won the men’s London marathon on Sunday in a stunning 2hr 2min 27sec, the second quickest time in the race’s history. Even more stunning: it was the 29-year-old’s second ever competitive race.

Football | Arsenal dismantled Lyon 4-1 in the second leg of the Women’s Champions League semi-final, setting up a clash against the formidable Barcelona in the final in a month’s time.

The front pages

The Guardian leads with an investigation, “Revealed – landlords and hotels are ‘cashing in’ on homelessness crisis”, the Times splashes on “Reeves faces pay demand for teachers and nurses”, while the Telegraph has “PM plans migrant cut to Reform”. The FT has gone with “US ports and air freight groups report sharp drop in cargo as tariff fears bite”, the Mirror has “For our girls” on the dads of two Southport victims running the London marathon. The Mail splashes on “So much for a bonfire of the quangos!” on public officials who get paid more than the prime minister, the i leads with “Don’t charge your phone in a Chinese electric car, UK defence firms warn staff” and the Express has “Anger over the creeping betrayal of Brexit freedoms”.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

A giant puppet of a Syrian girl has inspired a pilgrimage of hundreds of lifesize animal puppets – from central Africa to the Arctic Circle. As Isabel Choat reports, the public art initiative called The Herds will travel to 20 cities over four months to raise awareness of the climate crisis.

The Herds, produced by award-winning Walk productions that was co-founded by Palestinian playwright and director Amir Nizar Zuabi, has already travelled through Kinshasa, Lagos and Dakar. “The idea is to put in front of people that there is an emergency – not with scientific facts, but with emotions,” said The Herds’ Senegal producer, Sarah Desbois.

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

Bored at work?

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