It’s a strange paradox. The tougher that Tory home secretaries talk, the faster law and order seems to break down. Whoever’s in the role – Grant Shapps, Priti Patel, Suella Braverman – the same rhetoric grinds on, day after day: cracking down, clamping down, demanding tougher action. Now the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has joined in, reportedly launching “Operation Get Tough” and demanding the police use all the new powers available to them through the latest sweep of anti-protest laws.
Who’s listening? Certainly not us. Just Stop Oil knows first-hand that the legal system is collapsing. Some of our supporters’ cases can’t even be heard until 2024. Many of my friends will spend this Christmas in prison, most held without a trial, on remand. Jan Goodey, the first person to be convicted under the government’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, was sentenced to six months in prison just last week, the first of many protesters who will probably be criminalised for caring. Instead of facing up to the challenge of ending new oil and gas, the government would prefer to silence the alarm bells.
