Saturday 24 September 2022 10:20 PM Protesters plan 'six-week campaign that will gridlock Parliament, clog courts ... trends now
Climate-change zealots are plotting to paralyse Parliament during a six-week campaign of chaos, an investigation by The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Activists from Just Stop Oil will block key roads and bridges around Westminster next month in a direct challenge to Liz Truss’s Conservative Government.
Organisers are preparing for 3,000 of their volunteers to be arrested during days of protest and disruption designed to stretch the police to breaking point and clog the capital’s courts.
Details of the plot can be revealed today after our undercover reporter posed as an eco-activist and infiltrated a series of Just Stop Oil meetings.
At one meeting in Birmingham last week, Roger Hallam, the firebrand founder of Just Stop Oil, disclosed that the campaign will kick off next Saturday with thousands of protesters blocking bridges over the Thames in London ‘all day’. ‘This is like resistance, British-style,’ he boasted.
Hallam claimed that the Metropolitan Police would be ‘too scared’ to initially arrest activists – but that it would be forced to do so as the protests escalate. And then every day from then on people will be in London sitting in the road, and they will be arrested.’
He said the group was aiming to identify and recruit 1,500 people prepared to get arrested twice in London during the campaign.
Another activist, a former businessman in his late 40s, told a meeting in Norwich earlier this month: ‘We’ve talked to people in the judicial system and they reckon the system couldn’t really cope with about 3,000 arrests.’
Just Stop Oil want their volunteers to get arrested. Pictured: A Just Stop Oil activist being arrested after they blockaded a filling station at Cobham services in Surrey
Our investigation is the second time in less than a year that we have exposed plans by Just Stop Oil to cause mayhem. In February, an undercover Mail on Sunday reporter revealed how the group was plotting to block oil refineries, motorways and petrol stations across Britain.
Two months later, more than 200 people were arrested amid a string of protests at key oil terminals. Activists later shut the M25 and targeted petrol forecourts in London during a spring and summer of chaos.
Now, as part of its autumn campaign, Just Stop Oil’s leaders have switched their focus from targeting the oil and gas industries to taking their fight to the heart of Westminster.
The group has spent months recruiting people prepared to go to prison for their cause through a series of meetings and workshops, both in person and online.
Central London’s bridges will initially be targeted during a protest march on Saturday. A series of ‘rolling’ road blockades will then hit the area near Parliament Square. MPs return from recess on October 11. Specific details about locations will only be shared with volunteers on the day.
Activists have recorded videos to be released on to social media in the event of them being arrested.
Last night, a spokesperson for the Met said: ‘The Met is aware of planned activity by Just Stop Oil. A robust policing plan will be in place to tackle any criminal behaviour, anti-social behaviour or disorder.’
As the nation mourned the death of Queen Elizabeth earlier this month, rebellion was brewing in a 19th Century meeting hall in Norfolk.
With the country transfixed on the first day of the late Monarch’s lying-in-state in Westminster Hall, 50 environmental activists filed into the Norwich Quaker Meeting House to plot the final details of a six-week campaign to cause chaos in Central London.
The Mail On Sunday uncovered Just Stop Oil's plans to cause chaos in London starting next week. Pictured: The group blocked the entrance to the Kingsbury Oil Terminal in Warwickshire in breach of a High Court injunction
Agitators from the militant eco-group Just Stop Oil discussed how to take their fight into the heart of Westminster by blocking key roads and bridges around Parliament Square – the scene of last week’s magnificent State Funeral procession.
What they did not know, however, was that their plot had been infiltrated by an undercover reporter from The Mail on Sunday.
Indeed this was just one of a series of meetings and workshops, both in person and online, attended by the MoS during recent weeks at which plans for an ‘October uprising’ were discussed.
The campaign, masterminded by veteran activist Roger Hallam, will be a direct challenge to Liz Truss’s Tory Government and the first major test faced by new Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
Our undercover investigation can reveal:
More than 1,500 people are being recruited to carry out hugely disruptive daily protests in London; They each aim to get arrested at least twice over six weeks to try to overwhelm the courts system; The campaign will start on Saturday with ‘thousands’ of protesters planning to block bridges across the River Thames; Protesters will later block roads near Parliament Square to grab the attention of MPs and Government Ministers; A Los Angeles-based organisation, backed by Hollywood millionaires, is raising funds to bankroll the protests.
Around 50 people were arrested after Just Stop Oil activists protested outside an oil terminal on September 14
Launched in April, Just Stop Oil held a series of hugely disruptive protests at oil refineries, petrol stations and motorways earlier this year. But in a change of tactics the group will now focus on paralysing the road network around the Houses of Parliament and Downing Street.
Protesters have been told to converge at 11am next Saturday and Sunday at Euston, Paddington and Waterloo stations for an initial wave of action that will target London’s bridges. From October 3, protesters have been ordered to converge on Downing Street each day.
An experienced activist, a former businessman in his late 40s, outlined the plans to the activists gathered in Norwich on September 14 – the day the Queen’s coffin was moved from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall.
He told the meeting: ‘There’s the march on the first of October and then after that weekend, we’re going to move into this more serious, focused road-blocking. And the idea is we’re going to cause disruption to Parliament, by blocking the roads around Westminster. And the idea of that is to cause disruption to provoke a kind of conversation about this issue.’
He added: ‘The other part of the strategy is causing attrition to the police. The idea is every day they’re having to arrest people and remove people from the road, and that obviously consumes police resources.
‘It takes a
