Disruptive protests by the Just Stop Oil climate group cost British taxpayers £7.5 million ($9 million) in policing costs in just nine weeks, newly released figures show.
Just Stop Oil, an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, has been staging disruptive protests in an attempt to highlight its call for the UK government to begin winding down fossil fuel production in the country.
Members of the group caused serious disruption by climbing motorway gantries on the M25 and the QEII Bridge in Dartford, Kent, as well as blocking main roads in London.
They also sprayed orange paint on various buildings in the English capital and staged headline-grabbing protests at the National Gallery, Madame Tussauds, and Harrods.
The daily cost of dealing with the environmental activists reached up to £630,000 ($759,000) last autumn, according to data from the London Metropolitan Police obtained by the PA news agency through a Freedom of Information request.
The £7.5 million policing cost covers the total of nine weeks from Oct. 1 to Nov. 14, and from Nov. 28 to Dec. 14, and includes the cost of officers and staff planned to be on duty, overtime bills, and costs for vehicle use.
Over that period, more than 13,600 police officer shifts involved responding to Just Stop Oil protests.
‘Enough Is Enough’
Commenting on the figure, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “Enough is enough. Blocking motorways and slow walking in roads delays our life-saving emergency services, stops people getting to work, and drains police resources.”Metropolitan Police Commander Karen Findlay, who leads the force on public order policing, said the protests required “policing and money that could have been better used in local communities, dealing with priority crime.”
She continued: “Each day Just Stop Oil came out, we had to be ready to respond to their actions. When we saw them commit crime, we dealt with it quickly.”
Findlay said: “We are determined to work with the Crown Prosecution Service to charge everyone who has brought misery to the public through their unlawful actions. Everyone has the right to protest but some of their activity was not protest, this was outright criminality intent on disrupting London, which we had to respond to effectively.”
A National Police Chiefs’ Council spokesman said protests can require “a significant amount of planning work and resource for policing.”
He went on: “Often, officers will be required to commit several hours away from their core roles and there may be multiple investigations which arise from protests that will impact on their workload.”
But Just Stop Oil said the cost of policing the group’s actions was “proportionate” given the billions of pounds being spent globally “adapting to climate change.”
Legislative Clarity
The UK government on Jan. 16 announced plans to give police more powers to tackle “disruptive protests” such as those organised by climate activists, allowing officers to intervene before protests become highly disruptive.The proposed move would give police greater clarity about dealing with demonstrators blocking roads or slow marching, a tactic that has been used by groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain, and Just Stop Oil.
Under the proposed changes to the Public Order Bill, police would not need to wait for disruption to take place and could shut demonstrations down before they escalate. Police would not need to treat a series of protests by the same group as standalone incidents, but would be able to consider their total impact.
Ministers suffered a series of defeats on the legislation in the House of Lords last week, as peers demanded a higher threshold before the new powers can be enforced.
But the measures have been welcomed by senior police officers.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said after the government plan was announced: “It is clearly understood that everybody has the right to protest. Increasingly however police are getting drawn into complex legal arguments about the balance between that right to protest and the rights of others to go about their daily lives free from serious disruption. The lack of clarity in the legislation and the increasing complexity of the case law is making this more difficult and more contested.”
Rowley added: “I welcome the government’s proposal to introduce a legal definition of ‘serious disruption’ and ‘reasonable excuse.’ In practical terms, Parliament providing such clarity will create a clearer line for the police to enforce when protests impact upon others who simply wish to go about their lawful business.”
