Climate: Just Stop Protesting?

The Times has published another of its series of Editorials demanding that Just Stop Oil stop protesting(21st June). The paper is in favour of protests in principle but has yet to find one in the UK it supports.

JSO at the moment do seem to be engaging in high profile publicity focused stunts requiring a degree of commitment from activists. A comparison can be made, for example, with the Suffragettes who were more robust in respect of arson and blowing things up. The difference was that the Suffragettes were also a mass movement on the streets.

There is a march to Rescue Nature in central London on 22nd June which is backed by a very broad range of groups from XR to the National Trust and the RSPB. As a protest focused on the Election it has a point but possibly wont get the public impact of JSO stunts.

Getting what the historical sociologist Charles Tilly called the repertoire of contention right is something to be be discussed and sorted by climate activists, the labour movement and supportive NGOs. The Times does not have a seat at the table