What is Just Stop Oil? Protestors arrested after trying to disrupt Heathrow flights

Just Stop Oil activists have been arrested after attempting to disrupt flights from London Heathrow.

Protesters were arrested at 9am in two locations outside the UK’s busiest airport as climate protesters across Europe tried to disrupt air traffic yesterday (Wednesday, July 24).

A total of ten Just Stop Oil protesters were arrested outside the airport and at secondary locations as part of a Europe-wide campaign threatening summer travel.

Seven people were arrested at Heathrow and three more at other locations, Metropolitan Police said. Currently, all remain in custody.

Items recovered during the operation include cutting gear and glue, the Met said, adding that Just Stop Oil had previously stated it wanted to “disrupt national aviation and planned to target Heathrow”.

Chief Superintendent Ian Howells, who led the operation, said: “This planned action was extremely reckless and would have represented a real risk to the travelling public. Had it not been for these arrests, flights would have been suspended impacting thousands of passengers and businesses including hardworking families going on their summer holidays.

“It could also have caused serious danger to passengers and aircraft with flights being diverted and cancelled.”

Internationally, other environmental activists took action at a number of European airports with significant impact.

Demonstrators at Cologne Bonn Airport glued themselves to the runway causing chaos for travellers while Extinction Rebellion supporters in Finland also reportedly blocked security gates at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport on Wednesday morning.

The disruption comes in the same week as more than 1,200 artists, athletes and academics have condemned the “injustice” of sentences handed to five activists for peaceful protests.

In a letter to Attorney General Richard Hermer KC, the high-profile figures backed millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince and broadcaster Chris Packham’s call for an urgent meeting to discuss “the jailing of truth-tellers and their silencing in court”.

It comes after Roger Hallam, 58, was jailed for five years after being found guilty of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for his involvement in a protest that disrupted the M25 in London for more than four days in 2022.

Cressida Gethin, 22, Daniel Shaw, 38, Lucia Whittaker de Abreu, 35, and Louise Lancaster, 58, were jailed for four years over the demonstration, which saw 45 people climb onto gantries over the motorway.

Artist Dame Tracey Emin, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, film director Danny Boyle, author Sir Philip Pullman, singer Annie Lennox and actor Toby Jones were among those who signed the open letter in support of Mr Dale and Mr Packham, who called for the meeting with the Attorney General last week.

From what they’re hoping to achieve to when the group was founded, here’s everything you need to know about Just Stop Oil.

What is Just Stop Oil?

Just Stop Oil was founded in April 2022, and the group has held several protests since.

The climate-activist organisation is formed of several groups, with organisers from Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain at the helm.

Its website states: “Just Stop Oil is a coalition of groups working together to ensure the Government commits to halting new fossil-fuel licensing and production.”

What are Just Stop Oil’s goals?

While the name is a key giveaway, Just Stop Oil has a number of objectives to put an end to new licensing and “consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK”.

The group is also demanding that the Government stop all new oil and gas projects.

The website says: “Allowing the extraction of new oil and gas resources in the UK is an obscene and genocidal policy that will kill our children and condemn humanity to oblivion. It just has to stop. If we continue down our current path, it will destroy families and communities. We will face the starvation and the slaughter of billions of the poor — and the utter betrayal of our children and their future.

“Does our government get this? They are actively enabling the fossil-fuel industry through obscene subsidies and tax breaks for new fossil-fuel extraction.

“They are wasting billions supporting unicorn technologies, such as carbon capture and storage projects, which provide a fig leaf for business-as-usual to continue. There has been no rapid and sweeping social change, no widespread adoption of low-carbon technology, no war-style mobilisation.

“The choice: rapid transition to a low-energy and low-carbon world, or social collapse. We can do it now, in an orderly manner — creating millions of proper skilled jobs and protecting the rights of workers in sunset industries — or we wait for the unavoidable collapse.”

Why are Just Stop Oil members being arrested?

Just Stop Oil has organised a number of protests, including storming the British Grand Prix track in July 2022, where a protestor cable-tied himself to a goalpost.

Later that year, Just Stop Oil activists blocked Park Lane, the four-lane road alongside Hyde Park. Police said 11 people were arrested for obstruction of the highway and one on suspicion of criminal damage.

Days later, activists from Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery in London.

The two activists, who then glued themselves to a wall in the gallery, were placed under arrest for the attack on the painting, which is covered by glass and worth about £72.5m.

In October 2023, the activist group staged a demonstration during a performance of Les Miserables in the West End, at the Sondheim Theatre.

The climate activists took to the stage and raised a flag, prompting the performance to end early. The audience had to be evacuated.

Five people were reportedly arrested for the protest.

In a statement, Just Stop Oil said it was “calling for the Government to commit to immediately halt new oil and gas licences in the UK and for the directors, employees, and members of art institutions to join the Just Stop Oil coalition in peaceful civil resistance”.

May 2024 saw reverend Dr Sue Parfitt, 82, and Judy Bruce, an 85-year-old retired biology teacher target the Magna Carta in the British Library. They broke the glass container around the document with a hammer and chisel. They then held up a sign stating, "The government is breaking the law."

In June 2024, two women protestors from the group sprayed orange powder paint into the air from within the crowd gathered outside of Chester Cathedral for the wedding of Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster, and Olivia Henson.

A 69-year-old woman from Manchester and a 73-year-old woman from Suffolk were arrested for using devices to project the powder paint near the entrance of the cathedral as the couple made their way to the car.