Young activists, in particular, are connecting struggles against fossil capital with those against racial injustice and colonial oppression. Youth Demand, an offshoot of Just Stop Oil, calls for an arms embargo on Israel as well as an end to new oil and gas licences in the UK.
This cross-fertilisation has not gone unnoticed by the state: in May, John Woodcock, a cross-bench peer and government adviser on political violence and disruption, released a report on ‘protecting our democracy from coercion’, noting the overlap of tactics and afghanistan phone data personnel among the more radical elements of the movements for climate and Palestinian justice. He described these groups as part of a ‘far left subculture’ and recommended removing their rights to assemble and fundraise.
After a string of cases in which pro-Palestine and climate activists were acquitted of criminal damage offences, the then attorney general, Victoria Prentis, in February applied to limit grounds for defence, and judges have been increasingly zealous in their restriction of admissible evidence.
who attended last week’s trial, called it ‘a dark day for peaceful environmental protest’ that should ‘put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom’.