Environmental activist group Just Stop Oil says it’s ending its campaign of civil resistance.
Making the announcement on March 27, it claimed to have run “one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history” by pressuring the government to end new oil and gas licences and making them front-page news.
But it says it won’t end its campaign to protect the environment after its last planned protest on April 22 in Parliament Square, just that “.. it’s time to change. We are heading for 2C of global heating in the coming decade, resulting in billions being killed, mass civil unrest and social collapse” so “.. 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.”
Just Stop Oil’s actions in the last 3 years have blocked traffic on the M25 London ring road, disrupted sports and entertainment events, and vandalised famous artworks – including throwing soup at a Van Gogh painting in the National Gallery, exploding a chalk dust bomb during the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield, smashing a cabinet containing a copy of the Magna Carta at the British Library, spraying temporary paint on the stones of Stonehenge, and defacing Charles Darwin’s grave.
But they have also sparked public anger, especially at the M25 traffic disruptions for 4 days in November 2022, delaying drivers and making them miss flights, medical appointments and exams.
And hundreds of protesters have been arrested as the previous Conservative government brought in new laws to make “disruptive protests” increasingly difficult and risky and criminalise climate activists with new offences of interfering with key national infrastructure, “locking on” and tunnelling, and a revision of the law around causing a public nuisance.
Last summer, five supporters of Just Stop Oil were given the longest sentences ever imposed for a non-violent protest in Britain for the M25 disruption, prompting a chorus of criticism from human rights and freedom groups. A Southwark Crown Court judge sentenced Just Stop Oil’s co-founder Roger Hallam to five years in prison and the other four defendants to 4-year terms.
An appeal ruling in March 2025 reduced Hallam’s sentence by a year, two of the other four protesters to 3 years, and two to 30 months.
But the sentences remain the longest ever handed down for non-violent civil disobedience.
Just Stop Oil to stop – Sky News
Just Stop Oil hangs up hi-vis – The Guardian
Just Stop Oil jail sentences reduced
Has Just Stop Oil really stopped? – BBC
The Just Stop Oil campaign – The Conversation
Heavy jail sentences spark outcry
