The UK's Political Climate Crisis
On Monday the 30th of October I was part of a march of roughly 65 wonderful people who have all come together to demand that the UK government do the only sensible thing and stop investing in new fossil fuels. We started not long after 10am and I was arrested at 10:17, making this march no longer than 15 minutes for me. Yet I wasn’t released until more than two days later, around 4pm on Wednesday the 1st of November. Some think this is done on purpose to traumatise people out of taking direct action for what they know is right. Some people have been held up to 70 hours for peacefully asking the government to stop plowing ahead with plans that will cause millions of deaths. Once I was finally let out of my cell, after my case was heard without me or a lawyer there to defend me I was banned from London. On my way home my train took me past countless flooded fields where farmers will have lost their yearly income, where no food can be grown this year.
Within one month we’ve seen :three storms affect the UK, taking the lives of at least 29 people and causing widespread disruption far greater than Just Stop Oil will ever achieve. And we know for a fact that these kind of extreme weather events will only get more and more frequent as the global average tempurature rises. So why then are the government set on investing in new fossil fuels that they know will kill their own citizens that they are supposed to serve? Money. I know my dad will have a problem with me saying that but that’s what it all boils down to. We have people who are supposed to be protecting the environment, taking donations from climate change deniers. Rishi Sunak’s wife’s family company signed a $1.5 billion deal with BP just two weeks before he announced new oil and gas licences. The whole system is rotten to the core.
Are we extremists?
Now they’re trying to :change the legal definition of extremism to help squash any attempts to change this idiotic :psuedo-democracy we live under. In his famous 1963 “:Letter from Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King Jr. found himself butting up against the very same question:
I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. :Was not Jesus an extremist for love? :Was not Amos an extremist for justice? :Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel? :Was not Martin Luther an extremist? :And John Bunyan :And Abraham Lincoln :And Thomas Jefferson So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?
When we’re facing complete breakdown of the systems we rely on for survival, isn’t it right to have an extreme response?
My friends
Over the weeks I’ve been sat at home, unable to protest due to draconian bail restrictions, I’ve been watching pictures and videos of my friends being arrested stream in. Sometimes they’re crying, sometimes they’re angry. We all deserve so much better than this. As I write this, :many of my friends are in prison just for marching in the streets and refusing to comply with the government that are planning to kill us all. We keep hearing how the prisons are full and how even violent criminals are being released early to make room, yet they choose to use this room to lock up peaceful protestors.
No Prison Ships
People fleeing horrors of unimaginable scale deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. Currently the government that’s supposed to represent us chooses to house them on expensive, unsafe prison ships designed to hold half the people they’re hoping to cram in. This is why Just Stop Oil blockaded a coach bringing asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge on the 19th of October 2023. The private security onboard the coach, that are there to protect these vunerable people, can be seen in videos getting out of the coach and telling cars to run through the protestors. Once the group let the members of the public through the bus driver decided it was a good time to run over some peaceful protestors, egged on by the security guards. At one point someone was under the coach. The police only turned up out of an unmarked car after the group left the road due to fears of their own safety. 3 protestors were arrested. The driver and security staff were not arrested.
To simplify, a person working for the state drove into peaceful protestors and the police chose to arrest the people who were run into.
I’m sorry
To my relatives
I’m sorry for upsetting you and other people I care about and for getting into trouble, the thing is we just have no choice any more. I can’t just sit by and watch the world burn/flood/etc.
To those I’ve inconvienienced
I know that the marches I’ve taken part in have probably delayed some people but the fact is we don’t have time to ask nicely any more. That’s done nothing for the last 50 years and will do nothing now. We’re at a critical point and we can’t afford to be polite when everything we know is on the line.
To the police
You’re just as caught up in this as the rest of us. When it all goes to pot you will be the ones it falls to and I don’t envy that. Please consider what you’re doing and whose side you’re taking when you arrest us. Follow your conscience, not your orders.
What now?
Things are more dire than they ever have been. Governments globally, including the UK, have signed laws to limit the rise to 1.5C. On the 17th of November the global average temperature was 2.06C higher than the pre-industrial levels. We’re already seeing the effects of this. We’re already seeing people displaced. We’re already seeing people lose their homes. We’re already seeing people lose their livelihoods. We’re already seeing people lose their lives.
It’s life or oil and it’s clear which side the government is on. We have to keep fighting, no matter how tough they get.
If you enjoyed this blog post my ask is that you donate an hour’s wage per month to Just Stop Oil to help fund this vital resistance. If you’re more in the mood for more writings, my comrade Rebecca Stonehill has written some beautiful poetry during her stints in custody about her own experiences of civil resistance.
:x ExtremismDefined
The Guardian reported the other day that the government are seeking a new definition of extremism as
“the promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, its institutions and values”. This is seriously dangerous as we could soon no longer challenge policies such as housing people fleeing war on prison ships without facing terrorism charges.
:x Jesus
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
:x Amos
“Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.”
:x Paul
“I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”
:x Martin Luther
“Here I stand; I can do no other so help me God.”
:x John Bunyan
“I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.”
:x Abraham Lincoln
“This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.”
:x Thomas Jefferson
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .”
:x Chiara
:x Chris
:x Cressie
:x Ella
:x Noah
:x Sam
A message from Sam Griffiths in Wandsworth Prison
I was remanded to Wandsworth Prison because I walked slowly in the road with about 40 other supporters of Just Stop Oil and we were there for a maximum of 20 minutes. I will be in here at least until my court date of November 30th. 28 days in total. Apparently we breached section 7 of the new public order act.
I am shocked at how willing the police and the courts are to embrace this authoritarian and repressive legislation. Where is their moral backbone? Who are they serving? And who do they protect? It’s clear that they still believe we can arrest our way out of the climate crisis without actually taking any positive action to address the underlying issue.
It is undeniable that new oil and gas will lead to needless, senseless death of hundreds and millions of people. It’s time for the police to investigate and prosecute the real climate criminals in government, banking, insurance, fossil fuel companies and the media. They are upholding the status quo, promoting new oil and gas, despite knowing what it will lead to. This makes them guilty of genocide by oblique intent.
I am here because I acted out of love and fear. Love for everything I hold dear, and fear for what we will lose.
Stand up. Be counted.
Love Sam x
:x Phoebe
While in court Phoebe had this to say to the Judge:
I will continue to march while they continue to licence new oil, gas and coal.
How many more children have to die before you listen?
How many more floods have to wipe out entire villages?
How many people will die before you stop sending people like me to prison? Sir Mark Rowley has been handed a dossier of evidence. Why won’t you investigate the real criminals?
:x Ruby
We are on course to lose all we know and love. Elsewhere, young people my age face torture for their peaceful resistance to a much more present threat. Our weird, fascist government is indifferent. Our demand is a no-brainer. #StudentsAgainstEACOP
:x Merle
:x Rebels
All of the following people have been imprisoned without trial simply for peacefully marching in the streets. Some of them only marched for a few minutes before they were forced off the road, handcuffed and chucked in a cold cell.
:x ThreeStorms
- Storm Babet
15th - 22nd October 2023 8 People died.
- Storm Ciarán
29th October - 4th November 2023 21 people died.
- Storm Debi
13th November 2023 100,000 homes and businesses lost power, roads were closed, trains were cancelled and flights were grounded.