Just Stop Oil’s secret plot to ‘occupy the properties of MPs’

Militant Just Stop Oil activists are plotting a sinister nationwide blitz to ‘occupy’ MPs’ properties forward of the General Election, a Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered.

Hardcore eco-zealots are additionally planning to focus on politicians’ places of work and disrupt speeches and social gathering conferences in a chilling marketing campaign of intimidation and harassment that strikes on the coronary heart of the democratic course of.

Protesters describe their plans as a ‘complete departure’ from earlier operations, and instructed an undercover reporter they have been able to look a ‘bit loony’ of their flagrant try and ‘get consideration’ for his or her trigger.

The revelation comes amid rising fears for the protection of MPs, who’re dealing with violent threats and virulent assaults on social media. Tory politician Mike Freer is standing down after loss of life threats culminated in a suspected arson assault on his workplace and final week Rishi Sunak condemned an ‘aggressive’ 100-strong mob of pro-Palestinian protesters who focused Tobias Ellwood’s Dorset household dwelling, branding him a ‘battle legal’.

The Just Stop Oil motion is being partly orchestrated by Phoebe Plummer, the privately educated ‘poster woman’ of Just Stop Oil. It is unclear whether or not the activists intend to get inside MPs’ homes or as a substitute lay siege to them, as in Mr Ellwood’s case. But the deliberate motion represents a big stepping up of operations, straight focusing on MPs.

Sixteen Just Stop Oil members have been arrested late final yr after staging a disruptive demonstration exterior the Prime Minister’s dwelling in Kensington, West London. Police additionally moved on a bunch of protesters who gathered exterior Sir Keir Starmer‘s household dwelling to sing Christmas carols with a local weather change message.

But an undercover Mail on Sunday investigation has found these stunts have been simply an ‘experiment’ for a brand new wave of intimidating direct motion.

Speaking to a reporter posing as a brand new recruit, one Just Stop Oil activist referred to as Joe defined: ‘What our technique is, no less than within the short-term, is that we will be occupying Labour MPs’ places of work, their homes, disrupting their speeches, and so forth.

‘So that is sort of what taking motion with Just Stop Oil appears like for the quick time period. We’re not going to be doing what we have been doing beforehand which is marching on the roads. There’s been a change of path. The goal is Labour MPs.’

But he additionally stated they ‘would possibly simply be focusing on Tories’ too.

Last yr Sir Keir enraged activists when he stated a Labour Government wouldn’t tear up the 100 new drilling licences granted by the Conservatives to discover North Sea oil and fuel fields. And this month he slashed Labour’s inexperienced funding plans over considerations about their staggering price.

Joe stated: ‘There’s going to be an Election this yr. Labour are most likely the incoming authorities. And our demand is that they eliminate the oil and fuel licences that the Tories have granted.

‘Activists concerned in focusing on MPs can be required to first participate in ‘non-violence’ coaching. We’re dedicated to non-violent civil disobedience within the footsteps of like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and so forth and so forth.’

In a name with one other activist referred to as Alex, the undercover reporter was instructed: ‘This subsequent part is a complete departure from the final two or three. The thought is to shift the main target again to the political enviornment, on to Labour’s hypocrisy and the craven evil of the Conservatives.

‘What that is going to imply might be… bothering politicians, interrupting speeches, interrupting social gathering conferences, and being a bit shouty. Some of this was experimented within the final part – referred to as ‘unsleeping actions’ – so there was carolling exterior Rishi Sunak’s home, at certainly one of his residences. This goes to occur throughout the UK.’

In earlier Zoom conferences, group leaders described how a Just Stop Oil workforce would ‘go on recces’ earlier than focusing on MPs – a method they boasted was ‘good’.

Ms Plummer later despatched the undercover reporter a message saying: ‘Thank you for signing as much as take motion with us’ with a smiley-face emoji. She added: ‘Just needed to substantiate that you just’re conscious this implies signing as much as threat arrest?’

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman stated: ‘I give full credit score to The Mail on Sunday’s workforce for this good piece of journalism which has uncovered how Just Stop Oil fanatics plan to threaten, intimidate and harass MPs from all events within the run-up to the Election.

‘There may be no quarter given to this militant mob and I’m assured the police will take the required motion to stop any extra of their senseless disruption.’

Mr Ellwood warned that intimidating MPs and focusing on their properties would deter first rate individuals from all events desirous to grow to be politicians.

‘Already we’re seeing the brightest and greatest dismiss the considered entering into the general public area,’ he stated. ‘Unless we provide some clear boundaries in how protests are carried out, British politics will undergo significantly. That’s unhealthy for our nation as an entire.’

A Just Stop Oil spokesman accused the MoS of getting ‘in a tizz’ about ‘atypical individuals taking the ability again.’

He added: ‘Non-violence is the inspiration of all Just Stop Oil actions. This is democracy in motion – the general public don’t need new oil and fuel, so Labour MPs who want to signify the general public should decide to ending it.’

Last yr, this newspaper ‘saved’ the Grand National by alerting police to a plot by the activist group Animal Rising to halt the race by storming the Aintree racecourse.