New measures to silence climate activists? They’ll only spur us on

The UK government plans to give police even more power to lock us up. But it won’t stop us: this is about humanity’s future

On a day when swans were seen swimming through Worcester town centre after the latest flooding, the government has announced new measures to silence those of us pushing for more climate action.

The latest restriction on your freedoms involve the police in England and Wales having the power to shut down protests before disruption begins. The proposals will be part of an amendment to the public order bill, which already includes new stop and search powers and creates an offence of “locking on” to things.

So far the government has gone out of its way to characterise nonviolent civil resistance and peaceful protest as dangerous and criminal. But we are teachers, nurses, students, parents and grandparents. We act out of care, love and compassion. Now the government is going even further. Alongside the proposed restrictions on workers’ rights to strike, this is a sinister and authoritarian move from cowardly leaders who would prefer to lock us up than grant us all the right to live.

The supporters of Just Stop Oil are many different things but what they have in common is a deep concern for the future of humanity and a firm commitment to the principles of nonviolent civil resistance.

Resistance is necessary because politics is broken. Our democracy is dead on its feet. All avenues for legitimate protest are being closed, one by one. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act has effectively banned noisy protests. The public order bill bans “slow marching”. How are we to express our dissent? With new electoral laws on the requirement of voter ID discriminating against young people, how can those who will face the brunt of climate breakdown have a voice?

The police already have adequate powers to arrest people for obstructing the highway. Blocking roads is already illegal. The proposed powers will give them carte blanche whenever a political demonstration is happening nearby. Standing holding your D-lock about to lock up your bicycle, while being young or black? We know where that might end.

The recent reports about how the US oil company Exxon “privately ‘predicted global warming correctly and skilfully’ only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science” shows how, for decades, the cards have been stacked against those of us on humanity’s side. How can we expect justice and honesty from a government that is continuing to offer new oil licences?

We can’t expect reason or sanity either. These new legal powers will simply speed up the slow collapse of the justice system. Fair Trials reports that the number of people being held in prison on remand in England and Wales is at its highest for more than 50 years, with 1,800 people being held without trial for at least a year. As I write, 10 Just Stop Oil supporters remain on remand.

Just Stop Oil is not a fashionable cause or a protest movement. Our supporters are doing what the suffragettes did and what the civil rights movements did. It’s what everyone does when the inalienable right to life and a livelihood are violated: they engage in direct action. It is an act of self-respect, an act of solidarity, an act of necessity.

It matters little what changes legislators make to the laws on peaceful protest or how strongly the police enforce those laws. Just Stop Oil supporters understand that this is irrelevant when set against the future that runaway climate breakdown entails.

The government can arrest, fine or incarcerate ordinary people for making their voices heard, or it can take meaningful steps to protect the people of this country by stopping the development of new sources of oil and gas, insulating people’s homes and defending the NHS.

This latest clampdown is not going to deter us: if anything, it’ll have the opposite effect. We call on everyone to step up and do whatever is nonviolently possible to resist new fossil fuel exploitation in the UK – and the government’s slide into authoritarianism.

• Indigo Rumbelow is a supporter of Just Stop Oil and co-founder of Insulate Britain

COVER PHOTO: Just Stop Oil activists march in solidarity with jailed fellow protesters in London, 10 December 2022. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock