Yesterday was a good day. Over 1000 people blocked the road outside the High Court in The Strand, in solidarity with 16 Just Stop Oil protesters inside the court, appealing against their excessive sentences – adding up to a combined 41 years for various climate actions. I was very proud to be there.
For a while, it looked as if the police (of whom, idiotically, there seemed to be hundreds!) intended to arrest us – for public nuisance, or whatever. But I imagine the prospect of arresting, processing, charging and prosecuting 1000 very well-behaved people, standing up for every single citizen’s right to protest, was deemed to be a bit crazy.
I was holding up the photo of Rosa Hicks, bailed last week after six months on remand in prison – although she has yet to be sentenced. Rosa is one of the 26 young Just Stop Oil activists I’ve had the privilege of interviewing over the last nine months, all of them utterly dedicated, conscientious and inspirational young people.
Unlike the hateful misrepresentations of them that appear in the mainstream media – and in the ill-judged speeches and articles of an increasingly right wing Keir Starmer.
Judge for yourself. As part of this project with Just Stop Oil, and together with my wonderful colleagues Sophie Austin and Becky Burchell, we’ve made a little film after bringing some of those young people together for a Residential at Sheepdrove Farm; itself a wonderfully inspirational place, whose values speak so powerfully to this cause. https://youtu.be/pjkHtXRpyI4
Please carve out the 15 minutes needed to watch the film – and let us know what else you think we can be doing to stand up for those who are standing up for us.
And then, later in the afternoon, brilliant news from Edinburgh where the Court of Session concluded that Equinor’s development of the massive Rosebank oilfield was indeed unlawful. And that’s because approval was given by the Tory government without taking into account all the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from burning all the oil extracted from the Rosebank field.
So, there will be no further drilling at Rosebank, and Equinor will now have to make a new application to the UK Government – providing another critical test of Labour’s sustainability credentials.
