The timing of eco-activists blocking oil depots beggars belief

Just as the number of households in fuel poverty doubled overnight, climate activists had the bright idea to target oil terminals across the midlands and south-east over the weekend. The activists, or as the Guardian calls them ‘clean energy campaigners’, sought to disrupt the supply and distribution of fuel, just in time for Easter as millions of people take to the motorways to get away. 

The group responsible, Just Stop Oil, blockaded oil refineries in Warwickshire, Hertfordshire and Essex. In what is becoming as fashionable as it is stupid within the world of direct action, some decided to glue themselves to the road. Maybe they took advice from fellow Just Stop Oil activist Nathan McGovern, who decided to glue his own hand to a microphone during an LBC interview with Tom Swarbick.

In order to access the Kingsbury terminal in Warwickshire, activists decided to update the old Trojan horse strategy. Like something out of The Great Escape, protestors concealed a tunnel through the use of a modified caravan. Shortly after it was towed into place on Saturday five protestors began digging through a pre-cut hole in the floor. Warwickshire police made 29 arrests. 

Police have been busiest in Essex. On Monday morning around 40 people swarmed the Inter Oil Terminal in Grays, climbed the pipework of the loading bay and chained themselves to overhead pipes. This comes just one week after 338 protestors were arrested amid protests at another site in Grays – Exolum Storage. 

Just Stop Oil’s actions have led to petrol stations running out of fuel and brought untold misery to millions who have decided to get away for the Easter holidays. Yet this appears to be the modus operandi for modern climate activists. Just Stop Oil is the latest in a long line of eco-extremist groups that fervently believe that the moral righteousness of their cause is more important than your right to peacefully go about your life. They are the younger (in a literal sense) cousin of Extinction Rebellion – the group that brought untold chaos and misery to millions of Londoners as they shut down main roads and stopped people from going to work. It was the same tactic adopted by another climate alarmist group, Insulate Britain, when they blocked major motorways like the M25 during rush hour. 

The timing of this beggars belief. A few days ago the energy price cap came into effect. Average household energy bills have risen a staggering 54 percent. These ideologically naive idiots showed up at the worst possible time. As C.P.I inflation rose to 7 percent, millions of Britons are facing a cost of living crisis. Hard-pressed households are facing the worst squeeze in living standards since the war. How many of these middle class Waitrose warriors will struggle to pay a heating bill?  It just goes to show how out of touch all these climate groups are with the reality of ordinary people. Like XR before them there is a sneering indifference to working class people.

Worse still, with ordinary people struggling to afford oil and gas, what is their solution? Should people do as the group dictates: just stop oil? Then what? If poor people can’t afford petrol, should they just buy an expensive electric car? No, just go without. Back to the Stone Age, plebs! Eco-extremism is anarcho-primitivism in action.

I genuinely feel sorry for the young activists who have swallowed this rubbish. When you look at who is behind this it may explain a lot. Heavily involved in Just Stop Oil as with XR and Insulate Britain is Roger Hallam. He made the now infamous (and unscientific) claim that climate change will kill “billions” of people. With this kind of apocalyptic rhetoric it is no wonder that “eco-anxiety” or the chronic fear of environmental doom is having a disproportionate impact on the mental health of young people.

Like XR and Insulate Britain, the direct action of Just Stop Oil cannot legitimately be covered under the traditional concept of freedom to protest as it involves taking away the freedom of others to go about their lives. 

While I passionately believe in the right to protest, it must be carefully balanced and kept in check with the freedoms and rights of other citizens. When it comes to prosecution, it should be relatively simple for a judge to decide that freedom for people to go about their daily lives must surpass the freedom of political activists to engage in militant protest.