No more Protest

[lightinthebox]

Regardless of your views of Just Stop Oil, we should all be worried.

This has gone through easily because people hate Just Stop Oil, it’s an easy target and has fooled people.

We should not be celebrating lengthy jail sentences for planning protests, we should be scared about what this means.

Not just that, but if peaceful protests equal a jail sentence then what’s to stop people from going to violence if they know they can’t protest.

People should stop and think, ignore your prejudice and see the bigger picture.

The poorest are already being hit the hardest though and a central part of the whole net zero concept is the 'just transition' bit that seeks to ensure that the shift towards a net zero economy is fair and inclusive and addresses the expected social and economic impacts.

As someone married to a sustainabilty consultant (I'm surprised you think the solution here is to just carry on as normal and wait and see if the governments and businesses, who have ignored the issue for over 30 years, suddenly decide to implement equitable changes, especially as the timeframe for taking action to actually reduce the impacts is fast running out.

It's a bit like trying to lose a stone over a year. If you put it off until week 51 all your left with is drastic action.

And tbf the aviation industry aren't exactly leaders in this area, so I'm not surprised they'd try stuff like that. I remember listening to a speaker from the ICAO talking about the industry's net zero strategy at COP26, which essentially amounted to 'there's not much we can do unless someone develops a sustainable aviation fuel, but we want governments to fund that for us'.

Eh? The UN is literally a collection of the world's governments working towards various global objectives, of course it's political captured, but its politcal outlook mirrors the collective will of the members states.

I don’t think we should continue as normal, I think we need to initiate realistic and honest policies and processes and we don’t hand wave away a greater impact on the poorer in the UK because they aren’t as poor as those in other countries.

Its a grim world when we ignore totally what the UN says.

Sending people to jail for many years for protesting is what we've come to expect from Russia or China... can add the UK now.

That is a bit ridiculous. The JSO activists weren’t arrested for voicing opinions or just sitting in Red Square with placards.

If you actually read what Mr Hallam says, he specifically says this isn’t about the right to protest but acts of war. It’s pretty unpleasant, once you investigate a bit. I’m quite surprised

Jeez, what a self-regarding wanker he is.

12 HK student protestors got 6 years for storming a Government building.... we gave protestors 5 years for stopping traffic, i wonder what the uk courts would give protestors who stormed Parliament... supported whole heartedly by many of the public.

Protestors in HK who did not take part in violence or organisation, were not usually prosecuted.

Either way, the UN has condemned Russia, China and now the UK for how it prosecutes protestors.

Have you read the judges comments by posted above by ZoeyBarlett? Do you realise as bad as the disruption was, the protestors intended it to be far, far worse? That it only wasn’t as an undercover reporter tipped off the police? That the risk to life and harm caused would have been far worse if the ‘protestors’ had succeeded in their intention? That all were on bail for other offenses?

You seem to be if the same mind of the protestors. That you can bat away the consequences on others ( as long as they are not one of your own, of course). I agree with the Judge that this is an attitude of appalling disregard for other people.

This is nothing like organized legal events like football matches which are well planned and people can organise around. This was an illegal action no one could plan to avoid. It’s dishonest arguing to compare the two.

And no, you get to declare that the people affected won’t be affected long term. My FIL would have been utterly broken if he’d missed his wife’s funeral. Your dismissal was f things like this shows a really callous disregard for others

They’ve not been jailed for protesting. Read the Judgement.

The woman who missed a cancer appointment might well be feeling the effects

Well yes, this is why the Judge called them fanatics.
I’ve seen this over and over again from ‘protestors’. Exactly the same rhetoric. They decide they are fighting Nazis and genocide ( they can fit this into any cause, they are quite flexible like this), and then whatever they do is justified, because ‘Nazis’.

People with this mentality are dangerous and escalating in their actions, like JSO have proved. They wanted a worst outcome, more risk to life, and were only prevented by a tip off. They were already on bail and a light sentence or financial penalty as others have argued for on this thread, would just have made them feel emboldened to keep on escalating. The Judge was quite right that a deterrent sentence was needed.

XChrome · Today 04:52
Punishing non-violent protesters criminally is what fascists do.

Communists also, but maybe it’s ok when they do it.

It would be lovely to pretend, but I’m not. I understand alerting police for road closures, but police can decide you aren’t allowed to protest and then it’s unlawful.

Considering the actions of the Met and police I wouldn’t be looking to them to be caring.

This is alarming and people should be worried.

If people aren’t allowed to protest then it’s likely more violent actions will be taken.

@lightinthebox have you actually read what sort of things they are saying?

They are clear this is not about the right to protest. But a war

Or are you affiliated to them?

There are limits to the right to peaceful protest. Yes the Tories used JSO as a rather convenient basis to shift the line in government's favour, but perhaps JSO bear responsibility for being so aggressive in their tactics towards ordinary people.

People hate JSO and they have damaged their wider cause because they have no regard for the impact of their actions on others. Indeed the impact on others is the point. They are zealots, fuelled by their own self righteousness (basically engaged in mild forms of terrorism). They've achieved nothing but the tightening of legal controls on the right to protest and prison sentences for their leaders.

You would rather hope they would reflect on that; but of course they won't. They think it's just the machine oppressing them in their morally justifiable crusade.

Yet every week, in the actual real world, marches of a huge variety of conflicting causes take place, with the police enabling them and protecting the marches.

Your fantasy of the police arbitrarily preventing marches just doesn’t exist. If anything the police give too much leeway to the right to protest and allow people to be intimidated and harassed by protestors

And @lightinthebox you appear to have a poor grasp of why it’s a good idea to inform and liaise with the police. I was recently stewarding on a march. In the small city I was in, there were six other political gatherings/ protests going on, some of them for conflicting causes. The job of the police is to ensure conflicting protestors do not come into contact, which is why you need to agree times and routes with them. They also stop matches accidentally disrupting someone else’s event by seeking to march where it’s taking place. They also walked along side us to keep us safe from protestors who may have tried to attack us. Their job is to maintain public safety and order.

I think Op is well into the fanatic side. It’s really obvious but they can’t accept the facts. It’s not about the right to protest. And every person there has a string of convictions. If you keep committing the same crime and keeping intending to commit the same crime, your sentence will increase.

In all honesty, I want to know what happens if someone climbing a gantry fell off and died. Would Roger be financially compensating the family? Would he be taking responsibility would any of his pals?

I work in an industry that works at height. incredibly dangerous and no one should be doing it after an 8 hour climbing course. Non of the people organising this gave one shit about people risking their lives or risking the lives of anyone caught up in it.

It’s really clear RH has delusions of grandeur and people following him have been sucked into what is an exercise in stroking his ego.

I agree 100%. They are people that understand the threat to us, have seen governments ignore campaigns, protests, lobbying, hard science presented clearly over decades, and they are deeply concerned for themselves, their children or grandchildren and us all. They saw no other choice than to make a massive raucous noise and make big bold statements.

They have been given longer sentences than some sex offenders get. It’s an utter abomination that protesting can land you with a criminal record. It’s a serious threat to our freedom.

We should be worried.

They weren’t aggressive.

@WishIhadnotcome read it again. I said their tactics were aggressive.

And, in any case, causing people to suffer needlessly is to inflict violence on them. They merrily inflict physical and mental hardship on people by their methods. People have problems at work, miss medical appointments and are unable to be transported to hospitals in real emergencies because of these self righteous muppets.

They may think they are saints, but they are not comparable to suffragettes or the like.

Direct action taking against working people, for what?

We all fecking know that the planet is boiling and we have to change, but it has to be achieved at an international level and thru the deployment of tech. These people are fucking idiots.

I demand change now! All the billions of people in the world must comply immediately! Or I will sit here on the M25!

What a joke.

These are the kind of morons that thought soviet communism was good back in the day.

They've just latched onto environmentalism as it is the contemporary dissenters' cause.

They harm the very thing they claim to care for.

Excessive punishment for people like JSO is all about keeping the pretense of Business as Usual. "Yes, things are fine. Some climate change, but we can fix it with small incremental measures. Yes, it will all be fine if you sort your garbage and buy an electric car. Yes, sustainable airline fuel is totally a thing and not an imaginary scam! Please continue commuting to your corporate office job, the bad protesters tried to stop you from getting there on time. Important meetings await!". But Business as usual is on its last legs. It will end during your children's lifetimes.

We, humans, have fucked up our habitat beyond repair. This is not debatable, nor is it doomerism: the scientific consensus is clear. Our current society and its structures are basically running on fumes. We'd be screwed even if we stopped doing everything we're doing today, because there is so much carbon in the atmosphere the Earth can no longer absorb it (see recent news about this), but we are even more royally screwed by the fact that we're not doing anything at all. The only solution would be radical degrowth, and nobody is talking about this because it would be extremely unpopular. So it won't be done. Enjoy your Business as Usual while it lasts (not much left now).

It's possible that Just Stop Oil are crazy fanatics, but the authoritarian drive to shut them up is even more terrifying because it comes out of a fear of facing reality.

Just wrong / conspiracy tosh. It's a court of law. An independent judge. These offenders repeatedly break the same laws so the sentencing becomes steadily more punitive. It is how criminal recidivism is tackled in every democratic justice system. In China or Russia, they would simply disappear...

Our system is better is it not?

It's better by a very thin margin. I remember when the Ukraine invasion started, it was everywhere in the news that Russia where arresting people standing outside with blank signs, and everyone was tutting about how horribly authoritarian Russia is (and they are!). But the UK behaves very similarly to protesters now. The JSO sentenc is OK to you because Westerners think they are good, and second and third world societies are bad. Different standards.