Essay by Eric Worrall
If they release Just Stop Oil, they’ll upset the voters. If they keep JSO activists incarcerated, they’ll upset the donors.
You may find Just Stop Oil annoying. You may dislike their tactics. But they do not belong in prison
Chris Packham and Dale Vince
Sat 20 Jul 2024 01.23 AESTThese protesters are shouting ‘fire’ while the world burns. A society that locks them up cannot be called democratic
…
These people might be annoying. They might give you an earache. We might wish they would tone it down. But in a democratic society, they do not belong in prison. We need to be listening to them, not locking them up.
And we’re not just talking here about the courageous Whole Truth Five (WTF), the Just Stop Oil protesters who were jailed yesterday for 21 years between them, each locked up for longer than some people are for committing serious sexual assaults. People who took direct action to try to end the former government’s insane and deadly policy of “maxing out” on oil and gas reserves.
…
In February and March 2023, three people were jailed after saying the words “climate change” and “fuel poverty” in court, contrary to the judge’s direction that they should not use these words. And in April the same year, two people, Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker, were jailed for three years and two years and seven months respectively, for dropping a banner saying “Just Stop Oil” from the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at the Dartford crossing, causing delays to traffic. Decker, who is a German national, now faces deportation, even though his family life is here.
…We have a new government, and a new attorney general, Richard Hermer KC, a highly regarded human rights barrister with a deep respect for international law. We suspect he will be as disturbed personally as we are by the events at the crown court yesterday.
That is why we are calling for an urgent meeting with him, to be recorded so it is transparent to the public, to discuss not just Cressie’s case, but the jailing of all our truth tellers and their silencing in court.
Chris Packham is a naturalist, environmental and animal welfare campaigner, author and television presenter on BBC Two’s Springwatch
Dale Vince is a green energy industrialist and campaigner and a Labour party donor
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/19/just-stop-oil-tactics-prison-chris-packham
If the government could be certain the protesters would just retire quietly, or switch to less disruptive tactics, it would be a no-brainer. But if the protestors are released, in my opinion they would take it as a license to cause massive disruption, and the government would have to face public fury at their weak handling of the situation.
If Labour doesn’t release them, activists and donors will stir up trouble and disunity, which would increase the chances of the new Labour administration becoming a one hit wonder.
I don’t have an answer to this, to what the green socialist Starmer administration could to do resolve this dilemma, but it sure is fun to watch.
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I suspect that they’ll be quietly released after about 6 months. Probably in the midst of unrest in an area heavily populated by immigrants and boat people.
Sentences here are automatically half the term anyway which the lame legacy media fails to mention just like it does when a so called ‘life’ sentence is handed out which comes with a ‘minimum term’ and not carried out of prison in a box.
Its just been dropped to 40%, so even less time to serve.
Just Stop Oil Truthers
Like
Moon Truthers
Or
Flat Earth Truthers
Hoaxers and Huxters all
6 months in prison just might be sufficient education about following the law and not disturbing the peace
I have an answer to this ……….. keep them locked up. That’s the sentence and it should be carried out as the court orders. Caving to the bleeding hearts will encourage further disruptive protests, weaken the court’s authority, and send a message that the new government is weak
I agree with Packham and Vince, they don’t belong in prison. They belong on a work gang demolishing and hauling away solar and wind farms.
“These protesters are shouting ‘fire’ while the world burns.”
I have news for you Packham and Vince they weren’t put in prison for shouting fire while the world burns. If that was what they did they wouldn’t be in prison. I have zero sympathy for these bottom feeders.
It sure is fun to watch, kinda like really good theater…
Hmmm…
Isn’t it a crime to yell “Fire” in the midst of a theater?
No, they belong on an island without access to anything fossil fuel. Not clothes, not shelter, not food, not energy. They want a fossil-fuel-free world, give it to them.
Antarctica would be a good place.
I’d settle for a dinky Pacific island too small for anyone else, and leave them quaking in fear of it disappearing as the seas rise.
Packham and Vince don’t have the intelligence to figure that out.
“They belong on a work gang demolishing and hauling away solar and wind farms.”
And they can learn to sing “Эй, ухнем”
Make them an offer of clemency for turning Crown’s Evidence against their funders?
Offer Probation with the caveat that they can’t congregate with each other or other JSO protesters for the course of the probation
Everyone knows who the donors are – especially the recipients of the donor money.
As a civilization, we have long run away from Rule of Law and are now deep in How Much Justice Can You Afford?
Christopher Hohn.
n 2019 it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that Hohn had donated £50,000 to environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion, with a further £150,000 donated by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. None of the Charity’s money was spent on civil disobedience, it was claimed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hohn
One has to wonder how that donation could possibly be in line with the charity’s constitution and objectives, or charity law in general.
I wonder if an investigation by the Charity Commission might be in order.
Vance, one of the co-authors above, is a major finder of JSO and is a major subsidy farmer.
Someone just explain to Starmer that the world is not burning and that therefore the premiss that the zealots are truth sayers and working for the common good is false.
Starmer will be getting his advice from Ed Miliband. The dumb leading the dumber.
millipede always was a silly shreaking nutter.
For now all we can do is breath a sigh of relief Boris the liar is gone as is the Indy guy never elected to be in No10
I wouldn’t disagree, Boris and Sunak were hopeless PMs. But with Starmer it’s out of the frying pan into the fire.
but it sure is fun to watch.
It might be for you , Eric, 10000 miles away , but it looks like a grim 5 years for some of us.
Britain was already stuffed, no matter which mainstream party won it would have been the same. At least there is the possibility of Prime Minister Farage at the end of this nightmare.
I hope that Reform can succeed in becoming a proper democratic party in spite of being lumbered with Farage who has destroyed the Brexit and UKIP parties with his ego. Parts of the manifesto were relying on the snivelling service – lefties to the core – to come up with policy just like Farage’s failure to produce a plan for Brexit helped give us the mess with have.
I went to a few UKIP meetings, it must have been like herding cats to create a semblance of unity.
UKIP ranged from cancel social security economic hard right on the South East coast to “impose currency controls and seize the banks” Trotskyites in the Midlands.
This is why they could never talk about anything except Brexit.
I’m afraid you seem to be buying into a narrative spun by the left leaning broadcast media.
Sure, Covid and Ukraine have caused problems that would’ve rocked any government to the core, but the truth of “net-zero” was at least beginning to dawn among the Conservative ranks, and they were kind of moving in the right direction on that, and other matters.
Instead, we now have a government fully committed to net-zero, even weaker on migration, ready to cave in to the demands of the public sector unions, determined to trash the education system again, raise the tax burden even higher, and that’s just from the first two weeks.
And there is precisely zero chance of “spoiler” Farage ever holding any role in government, let alone leading one.
First off, the world isn’t burning.
Secondly, releasing them sends the message that you can do anything so long as Climate Justice is your excuse. These useless weasels only cause trouble in soft-touch England. They should be getting a public flogging to go with their five years. And by public I mean any member of the public inconvenienced by their actions can pick up the whip and deliver a lash.
Can I watch?
(he asked hopefully, with a crazed, sly but at the same time excited look in his eyes)
Bring back the pillory
F U K K
For
Unlawful
Klimate
Klowns
Labour have a huge majority.
They will ignore this, because they can.
The economy and public services are where the fight is at.
AGW is always bottom in every survey of people’s concerns.
Dale Vince belongs in prison with the activists he wants to release, as he was financing them to do exactly that:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67031062
Why is anybody paying attention to this criminal that belongs to the cell next to those convicted?
In case there is any doubt, here is a pic of Dale Vince, the donor that is asking for the release of the convicted Just Stop Oil criminals.
Arrest HIM and impose a hefty bank account emptying fine
If they were convicted of “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” and he funded them, surely he is an integral part of that conspiracy? Why was he not prosecuted too?
He should have to pay reparations to the police and the citizens who lost so much due to the activist activities. No, I refuse to call it a protest. It was more akin to an insurrection.
Is it still an insurrection if those in power are corrupted?
From the US Constitution…
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
In our current case Despotism would refer to the Democrat Party using any and every means, including Lawfare (persecution and prosecution of opposition), to remain in power
They are not trying to throw off the Government.
A slight correction to your comment “the donor”Javier.
We are the donors, the money he’s made from the subsidies, he’s given to them.
If there is no oil, what fuels do they propose for fire trucks, heavy transports, space and water heating, cooking food, and the generation of electricity for starters? What fuels do they propose for the heavy machinery used in agriculture, mining, and construction?
What materials do they propose for lubricants for machinery and vehicles?
What materials do they propose for the petrochemicals industries?
I’d send them to the forest where they can harvest wood for house heating in winter.
“I’d send them to the forest where they can harvest wood for house heating in winter.”
Been there, done that.. when I was a lot younger.
No thanks. !
Interestingly, most houses around here have wood burning heaters, harvesting wood is a semi-commercial venture.
wood keeps you warm 3 times
cutting it, transporting and preparing it, then burning it
I count 4.
excellent, I was testing to see if anyone would notice 🙂
You appear to be assuming a rational thought process, I assure you that no such thing exists among JSO activists.
They blocked people from getting to airports, schools, hospitals, funerals and cancer clinics. All the while, these privileged people were shouting inanities about a burning planet. Let the sentence stand.
People with real jobs that operate excavators, tractors, transport trucks….have very high disdain for people who don’t realize that diesel fuel is a work saving magic fluid.
I don’t agree with anything these lunatics say but of course they have every right to protest. What they do NOT have the right to do is disrupt the lives of thousands of people, including those going for cancer treatment, hospital appointments, job interviews, school, family funerals, etc, etc, etc.
The judge got this sentencing absolutely right and if these sentences are interfered with in any way there will a huge backlash, which I strongly suspect Sir Keir understands perfectly well. I’m no fan of his but would be very surprised if he allows anything to be done about this because it would be a clear political intervention in the judiciary process.
These people need to understand that activism is not democratic and will not be tolerated.
An activist’s soap box in the park seems reasonable to me.
We can’t just walk up to people on the street and obstruct their movement by shoving a placard against their chest and pushing back against them.
That would amount to interference with their human right of free movement in public spaces, accompanied with common assault.
We have laws to prevent those kinds of violent behaviors.
So what’s the difference when thugs conspiring and acting in company walk up to people sitting in their cars on the street and obstruct their movement by shoving a barrier in front of their vehicle and pushing back against them?
It’s the same interference with their human right of free movement in public spaces, accompanied by attempts to cause fear of personal harm and mental trauma.
Where do draw the line on excusing anti-social, threatening behaviors?
Let’s see…. there are laws covering assault, right?
Their stay in prison should be relatively short, but very uncomfortable.
There should definitely be some public service labor involved like cleaning up JSO protest debris and cleaning bespoiled artworks and putting greens and pool tables and tennis courts with ridiculously small toothbrushes and micro vacuums
There are many habitable, but currently uninhabited, islands around Britain. I would ship all the XR, JSO and other eco-nutters to one of them with nothing that involved coal, gas or oil in it’s manufacture apart from a flagpole. No clothes, tools, shelter etc and tell them to get on with it. Give them a flag and tell them to hoist it when they’ve had enough. This is the low-impact life they advocate, let’s just see how long they can tolerate it. I give it 2 hours tops.
I agree, but I wouldn’t ship them to the island. As soon as they’re released from prison on license the conditions would be:
a) make their way from the prison to a location on the mainland close to the chosen island under their own steam.
b) on arrival at that location then they are to manufacture their own transport to reach the designated island.
c) on arrival at the island they are to live off the land, using only local fuel sources, no oil based products, no mobile phones.
Lord of the flies?
The UK used to have Australia for that purpose- like, if you stole a potato to feed your starving family. Especially if Irish.
Speaking as the offspring a few generations down the line, it was the best thing that ever happened to our family!
Democracy means rule by the majority, nothing more, nothing less. However, many special interests go by a semi-secret redefinition of democracy meaning rule by the progressive meme and suppression of information that calls that meme into question, no matter how small a minority this represents.
As to those really, really ignorant people being called truth tellers, instead of propagandists and big lie supporters working against democracy (as bad as true democracy really is), isn’t even funny.
No. It doesn’t.
It ranges from. ‘Democracy means one man, one vote, and I am that man’ to ‘Democracy is merely a bloodless way to sack your ruling executive’
No. one man one vote is all about determining the majority. Yes it is a bloodless fight for supremacy. It is assumed that the majority will win. Democracy requires that the minority accept the supremacy of the majority thus the battle can be bloodless.
“(as bad as true democracy really is)” So where is this terrible true democracy? I am unaware of any true democracy at government level. Everywhere, the voters have ceded their rights and obligations to political parties which then make a parody of democracy. The people
s choice. A stupid choice but still the peoples. Not a true democracy but a deserved one.Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
— I forget who said this. Oh! Wait! Winston Churchill.
Any man who thinks he lives in a democracy is mistaken, in fact, he lives in an oligarchy.
Aristotle
The law must be clear. Breaking the law with impunity should have consequences. Deliberately dropping a large banner on a busy bridge could kill people in blinded vehicle traffic. Blocking ambulances, etc. the same.
Having let people commit these crimes for several years and then throw them in jail for multi-years, may have some unfair element to it. Perhaps start with a year and a stern warning that you follow through with on repeat offences.
I disagree with the authors that they should be “listened to”. Everyone should be listened to if they arent also destroying priceless art or valuable antiquities, or endangering life and groups like this have far more leeway than say a Brit who burns a Koran to protest the horrors of high death toll terrorist acts as a product of government reckless immigration policy!
Surely the executive Govt can’t pull rank over the judiciary?
Judiciary has done it’s job. It’s in the hands of the prisons and parole board now. Political interference rightly saved the sub postmasters who had a miscarriage of justice. These zealots were convicted under the new and legal harsher penalties so don’t have a leg to stand on.
Let them be martyrs to their cause, the rest of us to think of them as the new orange shirts like the black shirts of the 1930s
Breaking the law is breaking the law. Being too soft on other criminality isn’t an excuse. But house arrest would be more suited punishment. But not everyone agrees with them, the world is not ending. i love hydrocarbons. My green beans 2 days ago came from Kenia, a few more degrees won’t end life as we know it. Thank God i don’t drive much, it’s an old car and a dent or scratch doesn’t bother me. I’m at a stage in my life I no longer have time for bs. You can organise legal protests as much you want, but never block traffic or cause danger on a motorway.
We need to be listening to them, not locking them up.
That’s not an “either/or”. We can do both if we want to. There’s plenty of ways these people can argue their case without breaking the law. But if they choose to break the law then they face the consequences. Indeed, Roger Hallam has argued that the way forward for their cause is to get people into jail. Getting these people into jail, he argues, will create such a tidal wave of sympathy that the government will enact the measures they advocate. Is your stategy working, Roger?
What, “…each locked up for longer than some people are for committing serious sexual assaults”? Well doesn’t that just tell you there is something seriously wrong with a legal system when those committing “serious sexual assaults” get such diminutive sentences? Or has the definition of “serious sexual assaults” been so diminished it is meaningless?
I know that in Canada we have “catch and release” programs for many crimes now, and it is possible that the above definition has been diminished, but it seems that the courts and governments in the west continue to pat people on the head and send them on their way (to offend again).
In a sexual assault, there are not tens of thousands of victims.
We need to be listening to them, not locking them up.”
They were not incarcerated for their message. They were incarcerated for created serious public safety issues and tremendous cost to thousands of people.
As to listening to them, first they need to prove they know what they are talking about, the real science, not the headlines and activist messaging they have been brainwashed with.
If you shout “FIRE!” in a crowded theater, what is the sentence?
Dale Vince is not having much success in the courts:
https://order-order.com/page/10/
A typical piece of distraction and sophistry from these self-regarding individuals.
“These protesters are shouting ‘fire’ while the world burns. A society that locks them up cannot be called democratic”
They are not locked up for anything they said, shouting or otherwise, they are locked up for their actions, which were harmful and disruptive to others, and rightly illegal.