Police have said climate activists’ daily slow march protests through London have cost them millions of pounds and thousands of officer hours in the past six weeks.
As MPs prepared on Monday to debate new police powers to curtail the Just Stop Oil demonstrations, the Metropolitan police said maintaining order around them had cost more than £4.5m and the equivalent of almost 13,770 officer shifts.
Since the end of April, Just Stop Oil’s supporters have been causing rush-hour tailbacks by staging daily go-slow protest marches in the capital, alongside disruptive protests at high-profile sporting and cultural events.
They have said they will wage “an indefinite campaign of civil resistance” using the tactic until the government agrees to its demand of a moratorium on new oil and gas projects.
“In deploying the new tactics of moving slowly in front of traffic along highways, Just Stop Oil’s intent has been clear on disrupting road users,” said the deputy assistant commissioner Ade Adelekan. “This has caused significant impact to the public and officers have been responding as swiftly as possible once aware of the incidents.”
A spokesperson for Just Stop Oil said: “This is what happens when a criminal government pursues ever more repressive laws to silence dissent. The government has the power to stop this huge waste of police time and resources immediately, by ending new oil and gas. The money would be far better spent on protecting the British public by leading a rapid transition away from deadly fossil fuels.”
MPs are to debate a statutory instrument to amend the meaning of “serious disruption” in the UK’s public order regime, lowering its threshold from “significant” or “prolonged” disruption to “more than minor”.
Despite a host of new powers conferred by the recent Public Order Act 2023, police have so far used longstanding public order powers to tackle the go-slow marches. “In a lot of cases, putting in conditions from section 12 of the Public Order Act [1986] has encouraged protesters to exit the highway within minutes,” the force said.
On Monday morning, Just Stop Oil’s supporters were on the streets once again, beginning what the campaign said was the eighth week of daily protests. The campaign said 65 supporters marched in four groups in Lambeth, Victoria and Earl’s Court.
Just Stop Oil said one of the marches was stopped by police within five minutes, with the rest of them also placed under section 12 orders by 8.46am.
The Met said of 156 slow marches since the end of April, 125 had been limited or ended after police issued section 12 orders. Eighty-six arrests had been made over the campaign, mostly for breaching these orders, the Met said. Supporters of Just Stop Oil had been charged 49 times.
Sometimes officers have also arrested passersby or drivers caught behind marches who have confronted and attacked protesters. Adelekan said: “We know this action has been very frustrating for the public who just want to carry on with their day-to-day business. We would urge the public not to intervene or take matters into their own hands but to call the police, let us know where the incident is and we will get to the scene quickly. It may look like we are not responding quickly enough, however policing protests is complex and there are steps officers must take to make sure our response is lawful and appropriate.”
