Just Stop Oil is too crude to succeed

Reaction subscribers, in line with almost everyone else, will have limited sympathy for the Just Stop Oil protestors who were jailed last week for blocking the M25 in November 2022. They face considerable prison sentences which they will appeal, backed as they are by Luvvies and Lefties in equal measure. Just Stop Oil and its activists seem, as has been remarked on before, remarkably adroit at making sure they elicit as little support from the general populous as possible as the Judge showed when he published a list, within his sentencing remarks, of the people of who were heavily inconvenienced, to say the least, by the M25 protest, The list included seriously ill cancer patient who missed vital treatment. So far, so normal for Just Stop Oil.

Their quixotic approach to public relations continued when Cathy Nelson read out a passionate defence of one of the jailed protestors, her daughter Cressida Gethin, in which she remarked that young Cressie would now be missing her brother’s wedding as she will be in the slammer. In fact, aside from this unfortunate beginning, which we should put down to a mother’s annoyance that one of her children won’t be on show at a major family event, Nelson’s speech was rather good as any parent’s defence of their child’s noble, if misguided, actions should be. Nevertheless, on watching the speech, this viewer’s eyes were drawn to the top of Ms Nelson’s head where a pair of sunglasses perched. 

Whether they were expensive or cheap could not be ascertained but of one thing we can be sure, they were made of plastic. And what is plastic made of? Well, as the lobby group Plastics Europe tells us, plastics are “derived from natural, organic materials such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, salt and, of course, crude oil.” And oil was certainly involved in the fabrication of the microphone and lead that Ms Nelson used to broadcast her speech and probably her watch and necklace and possibly her shirt as well.

The point is not to suggest hypocrisy on the part of Just Stop Oil or the group’s supporters but to demonstrate that the crudeness of their campaign doesn’t help their cause. No-one, not even the most scrupulous hemp-wearing, yurt-dwelling hermit, can avoid oil. While oil is, as we know, mostly used as a fuel, it is everywhere in modern life and not just in sunglasses, smart phones, wind turbines and bottles. Oil is also a crucial ingredient in medicines, including aspirin, fertilisers, paints and other products for which no alternative to oil has yet been found. 

Natural gas is equally crucial for the day-to-day necessities that we all rely on: as an example of just how crucial it is, bread riots in Egypt, and subsequent government-funded subsidies which the government can’t afford, can be traced back to the 2022 jump in natural gas prices which had a massive knock-on effect on fertilizer prices.

So, as even Ed Miliband would agree, oil and gas are here to stay and Just Stop Oil, for whom this column, perhaps surprisingly, has plenty of sympathy, would surely do better to recognise oil’s ubiquity and tackle the world’s addiction to oil from the perspective of demand rather than abolition. They should be tackling how much oil we use, what journeys we are taking, how often we are flying, our efforts at recycling and all the other small steps we can take to reduce our dependence on oil. 

They won’t take this advice but the blunderbuss of Just Stop Oil won’t work. Nuanced, subtle, polite, intelligent campaigning will work and people will be receptive to it. If you want an example of how engaged people can be persuaded, look at how many voters in this month’s UK general election voted tactically right across the UK to the detriment of the Conservative party and the SNP. 

Just Stop Using So Much Oil doesn’t quite have the same snappiness of the current campaign but it surely has a greater chance of success than the present approach and will have the happy result that fewer activists will end up doing bird in His Majesty’s prisons wondering how earth it is that breaking the law on numerous occasions turns out to have more severe consequences than they thought possible.

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