Just Stop Oil

Since the environmentalist protest group Just Stop Oil launched in April 2022, viral stunts have punctuated its ascent to notoriety. Video clips of activists dangling precariously from cables over the Dartford Crossing, or dousing historic artefacts in substances ranging from tomato soup to human faeces, have polarised the British public. Because of stunts like those, along with more traditional direct action such as blocking roads, 92 per cent of Britons are aware of Just Stop Oil. But at what cost? In late November the organisation reported 2,000 arrests of its members since the start of its campaign calling for the government to halt new fossil fuel licensing and production – with 24 supporters still behind bars in mid-December. New Statesman analysis of data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled), an open-source registry tracking all reported political violence and protest events around the world, reveals the changing tactics of British climate protest groups since the start of 2020. Protests are categorised by Acled as either “peaceful protest” or “protest with intervention” (in this case, meaning intervention by British police forces). While the frequency of peaceful climate protests in Britain has slightly declined over the past three years, the frequency of climate protests with police intervention is rising. This may stem from a combination of police becoming more hostile to climate activists and protesters' more radical tactics in recent months. By analysing the number of peaceful protests and protests with police intervention recorded by Acled, the New Statesman found no obvious rise in police intervention in non-climate protests recorded in the same period. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var a in e.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r