Just Stop Oil protesters block South London roundabout

Environmental activists from Just Stop Oil today caused a furious bust-up between drivers after blocking a key roundabout in South London on their 13th day in a row of protests that have already resulted in 300 arrests.

One man confronted a protester, before a second man shouted: ‘Don’t touch him, oi, leave him alone. What do you think you’re f***ing doing? Let the police deal with it’. The man replied: ‘Where’s the f***ing police then?’ 

The demonstrators established a series of roadblocks from 9am on routes around St George’s Circus in Southwark, which is located between Lambeth North and Elephant and Castle Underground stations.

The activists sat on the roads with banners with some gluing themselves to the Tarmac, as they continued their campaign demanding that the Government halts all new oil and gas licences and consents.

Among the protesters was Jane Thewlis, 60, a retired social worker from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who said: ‘My life’s work has been to look after people and I can’t bear to see the suffering caused by climate breakdown.

‘People are being forced to visit food banks and unable to heat their homes. I have been seriously depressed to see this government add to their suffering while giving tax handouts to the wealthy. Just Stop Oil gives a simple message: no more oil and gas licences. Let’s start creating a world where we care for everyone.’

Manny McKenzie, 63, a retired child psychiatrist also from West Yorkshire, said: ‘I am taking action for the first time because it is clear to me that, given the urgency of the worsening climate crisis, and the inaction, paralysis and denial we are seeing from our political leaders, there is now no alternative.

‘Ending new oil and gas projects seems to me to be such a no-brainer. Allowing more oil and gas to be burned is going to fuel climate and ecological disaster with billions of people facing death and starvation, while decarbonising energy, transport and farming will protect us, increase our quality of life through greater resilience, community and healthier environment, and set an example for others to follow.’

And Sally Hayes, 66, a grandmother and shop owner from Hebden Bridge, said: ‘We have two to three years left to take decisive action to prevent complete catastrophic climate breakdown. This government is behaving with criminal irresponsibility in granting licenses for more fossil fuel extraction against all scientific advice.

‘I can’t just stand by and watch the destruction of this wonderful world and all our children’s lives. I can’t bear to think of the life my lovely little granddaughter has before her. We’ve had our lives, and bear collective responsibility for this catastrophe. How can we do this to our children?’

Today’s sit-down protest comes after 12 days of consecutive demonstrations by Just Stop Oil activists in which there have already been more than 337 arrests.

Yesterday, two Just Stop Oil activists were arrested, as well as 25 people from Insulate Britain which returned to the roads following a 13-month absence and established a roadblock on Parliament Square.

Just Stop Oil said that since its campaign began on April 1, there have been more than 1,600 arrests.

A spokesman said: ‘This is not a one day event, this is an act of resistance against a criminal government and their genocidal death project. Our supporters will be returning – today, tomorrow and the next day – and the next day after that – and every day until our demand is met: no new oil and gas in the UK.

‘We will not be intimidated by changes to the law, we will not be stopped by private injunctions sought to silence peaceful people. Our supporters understand that these are irrelevant when set against mass starvation, slaughter, the loss of our rights, freedoms and communities.’

Yesterday, the UK’s top police chief told of his frustration at not being able to shut down demonstrations blocking roads – and insisted officers should not give protesters cups of tea.

New Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said he would ‘love to’ quickly close down protests instead of having to commit ‘enormous’ resources, but he lacks the legal power to do so.

He told a London Assembly committee he was annoyed that officers had to wait until protests by the groups such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion were deemed to meet a legal threshold of causing major disruption before stepping in.

Despite Just Stop Oil protesters blocking traffic in Knightsbridge on Tuesday on their 11th day of disruption which resulted in the delaying of an ambulance, a fire engine and a car carrying a sick baby to hospital, Sir Mark said his officers could not be ‘more assertive’.

Activists have blocked bridges and roads in Westminster, glued themselves to a roof of a police car in Piccadilly Circus and closed down The Mall in front of Buckingham Place.

But under the law, the Metropolitan Police’s partners, Transport for London and local council have to say that it causes ‘serious disruption’ to the lives of those in local communities before the police can disperse them.

When asked whether officers should be handing out cups of tea to protesters, Sir Mark said: ‘I do not think we should do that. It’s not our responsibility.’

He said: ‘This has been a really difficult operation over the 11 days so far. And it annoys me how much it’s taking away from policing local communities.

‘In 11 days we have put 2,156 officer days into doing this, so that’s a couple of hundred (of officers) per day roughly.

‘That’s an enormous amount of policing resources that aren’t tackling issues that matter to local communities, aren’t dealing with knife crime, aren’t dealing with violence against women and girls.’

He told the committee: ‘The law is very clear that just blocking a road in itself isn’t automatically serious disruption and, whilst it’s committing some offences, in terms of obstruction of the highway, those aren’t prosecutable if it’s a lawful protest as long as it doesn’t exceed reasonable bounds.

‘And that’s the judgments police officers have to make the whole time.

‘The fact I’ve been putting 200 officers a day into policing this, I don’t welcome that, that’s not good for London’s communities, frankly. But I have to work with the legal framework.

‘I would love to be able to close these down more quickly and spend less policing resources on it at the moment, and as soon as partners who have the expertise to assess the impact on the road network and the road services, as soon as they say this is heading towards crossing the line, we’ll be in there straightaway. But until that point, I don’t have a legal power to do that.’

On Tuesday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she expects police to use the ‘full powers’ given to them by the Government.

She branded the actions of demonstrators from Just Stop Oil in west London as ‘self-defeating’ and ‘completely indefensible’.