‘It’s not protest, it’s crime’: Senior Met cop condemns Just Stop Oil as LBC reveals £7.7m bill to police disruption

by insomnimax_99

7 comments

  1. Sigh. Here we go.

    Disclaimer/Here’s where I stand: I don’t particularly support JSO. I think their approach is doomed to fail, and will cause more harm than good. I agree with their intent, their end goal, and their morals. I disagree with their approach.

    I disagree with their approach, because they’re opening themselves up to be a scapegoat, used to implement harsher anti protesting laws, to perhaps even outlaw protesting entirely. Their approach, being uniquely annoying to your average joe, is just a prime candidate for that.

    ———–

    >”But this isn’t protest, this is crime, and there is a difference.

    “The right to protest is very strongly protected, but when you get into very deliberately causing serious disruption to the public of London, stopping people going about their daily business, stopping people going to work, or to hospital, or taking their children to school, then that tips over into crime.”

    **”but when you get into very deliberately causing serious disruption to the public of London”**

    The idea that this is now a crime, means future protests are just doomed. I think we’ve been seriously stupid with our approach to protesting the powers that be’s attitude towards climate change, and now good luck trying to protest it in the future.

    ————–

    >He said he does not want to see people take the law into their own hands – there have been many cases of angry motorists ripping banners and forcing protesters off the streets – so officers need to clear any disruption quickly.

    And isn’t this just outright victim blaming? The way it’s worded?

    Motorists applying vigilante justice, so we need to remove the victims of this vigilante justice from the situation?

    ————

    TLDR: JSO aren’t making many friends… and there isn’t a person on the planet that is standing up to oil billionaires and the likes without any friends.

    PS fuck the met.

  2. If you redraw the law to criminalize protest then you can call it crime….

  3. Before you defend the protestors it’s worth noting the following [data](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1147372/2022_Provisional_emissions_statistics_report.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjGrNGH4KmAAxU3S0EAHdjUBYwQFnoECA0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0Pm04aKDZZ8BAyCm8CQ7PJ)

    The protestors are lying to the public saying the UK is doing nothing when in reality for decades the UK have reduced emissions year on year….

    Now look at China Vs UK… In (MT co2)

    UK

    – 2017 – 379
    – 2021- 335

    Réduction of 44

    China
    – 2017 – 10,877
    – 2021 – 12,466

    Increase of 1589

    If the China reduced their emissions by just **2%** it would offset the UK entire 335 emissions….

    The UK emissions of 335 is **0.8%** of the worlds emissions.

    Their choice to protest the British public, who pay a lot of tax for green projects, who vote green, who recycle, is so utterly bizarre to me…

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

    Edit: for those saying China is whataboutism is utterly ridiculous. Climate change will be dictated by China and that is a fact.

    Reducing the entirety of Europe to zero emissions won’t have any affect on the climate. **China needs to be in every single conversation on climate change.** Either the China issue is debated and discussed now, or the issue is revisited in 2050 when it will be too late…

  5. I don’t think JSO’s protests are worthy of anything and they’re certainly not the modern-day suffragettes they pompously act like they are. They think they’re the difference between the death and the survival of the human race, when actually their focus (the North Sea drilling) is on an extremely negligible drop in the ocean of climate change which may actually not be a drop in the ocean *at all* if you bother to read up on the nuances on it, which they haven’t.

    That being said, the law’s recent attitude towards protesting is an actual problem. I agree that you shouldn’t legally be able to block motorways, but that’s not the extent of the government’s crackdown is it. That latest legislation needs protesting, frankly a lot more than the oil drilling does.

  6. As long as it’s also a crime when London is shut down by those posh fucks having a wedding or a funeral, then I guess it’s fair.

  7. If you support any legal political group using these high frequent stoppages to traffic to protest then you support the right to protest

    If you only support groups you like using these tactics then you do not support a right to protest but award yourself the privilege of doing what you want.

    I.e. if groups demanding hard Brexit or imposing Sharia compliant advertising laws were protesting: would you support it?

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