Last week, five members of Just Stop Oil (JSO), the so-called Whole Truth Five, were given harsh prison sentences for their part in allegedly organising a protest on the UK’s M25 motorway against the granting of new oil and gas licenses in November 2022. Roger Hallam, seen by the authorities and by the sentencing judge, Chrisopher Hehir, as the leader of JSO , received 5 years in prison, whilst four others, received terms of 4 years in prison. They were found guilty of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance under the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. This was mainly on the evidence of a Sun journalist who had infiltrated a meeting of the group.
This week, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were found guilty by the same judge of criminal damage after throwing soup which covered the glass over Van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers, the month before. They will be sentenced on 27th September.
Judge “Dread” Hehir refused in both trials to accept fears over the climate collapse as justification for the actions. The motivations were, he said, no defence against the charges against them. He went on to say that evidence relating to climate change would be “constricted” in his court, and that the world has exceeded the safe level of 1.5°C for 12 consecutive months was “neither here nor there”. So, the defendants were not allowed to explain their motives to the jury. When they attempted to do so, four of them were repeatedly re-arrested and dragged from the dock to the cells. Outside, 11 others were arrested for contempt of court, just for holding placards reading “Jurors deserve to hear the whole truth” and “Jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience”. Those arrested will be tried in September, and face prison for up to two years, and/or a fine.
Sentencing the five, “Dread” Hehir said, “The plain fact is that each of you some time ago has crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. You have appointed yourselves as sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change.”
The Act can just as much be used against strikers on picket lines or blockades of workplaces as it could against climate activists. Back in July 2021, the then Labour shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds attacked the Act because it destroyed the right to protest. Now that they are in power, Labour is refusing to repeal the Police Act and the Public Order Act. Similarly, Labour promised much in the way of legislation on green issues, then promptly made a massive U-turn, on the grounds of costing too much, even before it had got into power. A little before the election, Keir Starmer went on LBC radio to say that Labour were pushing for longer sentences for climate protestors and that “they need to feel the force of law.”
Responding immediately to the sentencing, Labour’s Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard endorsed the vicious sentencing, and stated, “’I’m glad that there’s now been a strong message sent to them, and anyone thinking about that type of disruptive protest in the future, that there’ll be serious consequences if they go down that path.”
As the ACG said back in 2019 about Extinction Rebellion (XR), from which JSO split, “It is clear that the political establishment intends to counter XR in a drastic way…This will mean increasingly heavy-handed actions against XR protestors, increasing fines and imprisonment, and the characterisation of XR in the bourgeois media as extremists.” The same applies to JSO.
We stand in solidarity with those sentenced and soon to be sentenced, and call for the scrapping of the sentences. We have criticisms of the politics of Just Stop Oil, but this does not mean we do not condemn their treatment. As we said back in 2019 about XR, the same criticism of which can be levelled against JSO: “Despite much from the anarchist movement on the dangers of climate change going back to the 1960s, it has not managed to engage with the mass of the population and has not succeeded in creating a large movement against climate change. XR has been successful in this, on the other hand, at least in the short term, and has drawn thousands into action. We can offer our criticisms, we can condemn their sterile actions, but at the end of the day they have been able to mobilise where we have not, and they have been able to highlight the dangers of climate change like never before.”
JSO fail to link the climate crisis to its root cause, capitalism itself. They engage in shows of love for the police and the legal system, for instance, shouting out to the judge after sentencing that “We love you.” This fundamentalist strategy of non-violence is laughed at by the State and its servants. Hehir was to say in court, “I do not regard your status as non-violent direct action protesters as affording you any particular mitigation.” In other words, an assumption could be made that you might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, as non-violent tactics incur the same sentencing as a rioter.
We do not agree with what some, including leftists, are coming out with, though, that these protests are causing “inconvenience” to the working class. As Tom Gann , writing in New Socialist (February 23rd, 2023) and criticising these leftists, remarked, “Most of the criticisms amounted to little more than taking refuge in helplessness—a justification of indifference. Many were made in the name of “the working class,” who were invoked not as a potential basis for power or transformation, and still less as people who may have an interest in ecology or in taking action against “the climate crisis.” Not a revolutionary class, or even a potentially revolutionary one, but a group who must, at all costs, be spared “inconvenience.” Here parts of the left merge with Starmer and authoritarian centrism, not just in his particular criticism of Just Stop Oil , but in their wider conception of “class politics,” wherein the existence of the state is justified through its suppression of politics, its suppression of possible working class inconvenience.” As one commentator on Reddit said, “If people think a few activists with paint are inconvenient, they’re really going to be miffed when this crisis moves on from its opening salvo into the main act. The time of fuck around is pretty much over, the time of find out is just beginning. I don’t have to like or support all of their actions to realise we have a serious problem.”
The sentencing of the JSO activists and Labour’s responses, indicate the nature of this incoming government. The Starmer regime will carry on in much the same way as the Tories, but more ”competently” and more “efficiently,” to the approval of many elements of the ruling class.
The Starmer government has come to power through an election with the lowest voting turnout since the introduction of universal suffrage, ready to continue with austerity measures and with a massive increase in defence spending. It and the ruling class it serves is very aware of the threat of disruption to logistics and transport, which could be used effectively if new mass movements created by the working class emerge.
The State has gone for JSO and imposed draconian sentences on its activists. This repression can soon be used against other groups and organisations, especially if the social climate becomes stormier. That is why we criticise the treatment of JSO, and call for the release of JSO members.