Third Times Editorial condemning Just Stop Oil: Protest and Survive
As a veteran protester I have a note of disagreement with Just Stop Oil. I don’t think that it’s the case that petitions, rallies and marches don’t work and direct action does. Rather it is a matter of horses for courses as it were. What the historical sociologist Charles Tilly called the repertoire of contention.
That said Just Stop Oil’s protests are making an impact. On 9th November the Times published its third editorial condemning them. It argued that the were ‘well heeled’ people committing acts of vandalism.
Whether it will be enough to get the Government to act is in the balance but Suella Braverman speaking to an audience of police officers has made her views clear again. She called protesters ‘Radicals, road blockers, vandals, militants, extremists’. Presumably all tofu eaters.
A demand for tougher action against protesters was met with a rebuke from the Met Police Commissioner who noted that it is not legal for the police to kill protesters. It is not legal for them to arrest journalists covering the protests either but that hasn’t stopped Hertfordshire polce.
Given the scale and likely impact of the climate crisis one might suggest that the scale of protest, and inconvenience, is modest by comparison. For those that don’t like direct action the issue is what they would do instead on the repertoire of protest
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