Just Stop Oil and the art of protest

The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge across the Thames was closed for a second day today as Just Stop Oil protesters continued their campaign of disruption.

The climate group has staged “several days of high-profile protests”, said Indy100, including throwing soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in London’s National Gallery on Friday. Activists then scaled the masts over the Dartford Crossing bridge east of London on Monday, forcing it to be closed and causing extensive delays for motorists.

According to its website, Just Stop Oil is a “coalition of groups” working together to “ensure that the government commits to ending all new licenses and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK”.

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However, its disruptive and headline-grabbing protests have divided public opinion.

‘They deserve solidarity’

These protesters “deserve our solidarity”, argued James Greig in Dazed. Another direct action climate group, Extinction Rebellion, was “wildly unpopular”, he recalled, but “following their protests, polls showed that more people considered the climate crisis a priority”.

Greig added that “environmental protests do create a sense of emergency – within the last few years, you can feel that very palpably”.

“It’s OK to be a little divisive,” wrote Professor Paul Springer, director of the School of Communication at Falmouth University, for The Independent.

Just Stop Oil’s stunt is a “jolting, momentum-starting tactic” to “ensure that their message remains at the top of the news agenda, despite everything else that’s happening at the moment,” he added.

The protests also prompted a sympathetic tweet from a BBC stalwart. Sharing an interview Owen Jones conducted with the National Gallery protesters, Gary Lineker wrote that the conversation was “worth a listen, because, like it or not, no one will listen without disruptive protest”.

Just Stop Oil’s attack on Sunflowers “was to symbolise that we’re attacking something we love”, wrote Oli Mould on The Conversation. The geography lecturer from Royal Holloway, University of London added that “the level of ire at those symbolically ruining… a precious art piece”, which was behind protective glass, “should be given a million-fold to those who are actually ruining our precious planet”.

‘Tantrum-throwing trust-funders’

But the group has also attracted a great deal of criticism. “I suspect I’m not the only person of my political persuasion who has lost all patience with these tantrum-throwing trust-funders,” wrote Stephen Daisley in The Spectator.

“Every day now they perpetrate some fresh and deeply tedious outrage,” agreed Michael Deacon in The Telegraph.

Many believe that the protests undermine the very cause they are supposed to be advancing. “We know such protests damage good causes such as decarbonisation, protection of nature, waste and reforming industrial farming,” argued Libby Purves in The Times. She accused the protesters of a “self-righteous nihilistic rage that looks increasingly like a mental disorder”.

The then environment secretary George Eustice said the climate change protesters were “wrong” when they blockaded oil terminals back in April, reported The Times. Eustice criticised the activists for “trying to cause havoc with people’s lives”, and said such tactics would be banned by imminent changes to the law.

According to the BBC, new home secretary Suella Braverman is intending to give police more powers to stop protesters “holding Britain to ransom”. If that is the case then the tactics of groups such as Just Stop Oil may have to change.