A Just Stop Oil protester has said she would understand why members of their organisation were blocking the road, even if it meant their mother would miss an urgent hospital appointment.
Speaking to The News Agents podcast, Indigo Rumbelow justified the actions of Just Stop Oil, despite the continued anger their protests generate among the general public.
Presenter Jon Sopel pointed to an incident when one road user said they had to get to a hospital appointment, and the Just Stop Oil protester said: “I don’t believe you.”
Rumbelow responded she wouldn’t defend that behaviour and that protesters would let emergency vehicles through.
Sopel then asked Rumbelow how she would feel if her mother could not get to an urgent hospital appointment because of a Just Stop Oil protest.
She responded: “I would understand why there’s Just Stop Oil protesters blocking the road, even if it was my mum, and that’s because what we’re talking about coming down the line, within my lifetime, by 2030, is billions of people living outside of liveable temperatures.”
Blocking Access to Oil Supporters’ Loved Ones
Justifying Just Stop Oil’s protests despite their massive unpopularity with the British public, she said: “It’s a moral choice that we all have to erect, and we have to decide whether we are going to stand up against a Tory government which is pursuing new oil and gas in the middle of the climate crisis despite the warnings that this is going to kill billions of people or if we are going to sit by and just pretend that we have no power.”
The group said it had caused “chaos” by staging another of its slow marches along three roads near West Kensington tube station on Wednesday, including the A4, with 66 supporters taking to the streets at around 8 am.
The footage on the Just Stop Oil (JSO) Twitter account showed a police officer dragging one protester along the ground before appearing to give up and walk off.
Under the new Public Order Act, officers can make activists move out of the road or face arrest.
An entry on the Metropolitan Police Events Twitter account at 8.45 am said the road was clear.
Wednesday’s march followed protests on Tuesday, where JSO supporters blocked four bridges in London.
The Role of Direct Action in Climate Activism
The group has been acting, including slow marches on significant roads, every day since April 24. It has pledged that the action is indefinite until the government bans any new gas, oil and coal licences.
Tempers have frayed among members of the public amid the traffic hold-ups, with heated scenes earlier in the month as drivers tried to force protesters from the roads physically and snatched banners.
There was also irritation as protesters threw orange paint over a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show and disrupted the Gallagher Premiership rugby final at Twickenham by invading the pitch and throwing orange powder paint.
The Metropolitan Police has spent £3.5 million policing the protests from April 24 alone, on top of £7.5 million spent by force dealing with JSO action between October and December last year.
Last week, temporary assistant commissioner Matt Twist urged the public to delay for the police to deal with the demonstrations.
He said: “We understand why those caught in traffic delays will be frustrated.
How Hospital Appointment Blockades Amplify the Climate Movement
“I would urge the public not to intervene or take the affair into their own hands, but to call the police, let us know where the incident is, and we will get there quickly.”
He added that the time between officers arriving at each scene and imposing conditions to move protesters out of the road had been between 13 and 19 minutes for the recent marches.
With warm weather often a novelty in the UK, it can be easy to forget to slap on sunscreen like we do when we’re somewhere hot abroad. And that was true for Michelle Richardson.
She said she’d always apply it abroad but often needed to do so at home. Michelle didn’t overthink it until five years ago when she found a mole underneath her bra strap.
The mole was removed and, with it, a thin layer of skin cancer. However, a year later, small tumours came out all over her body within a week. It even covered her lungs and brain as stage four incurable melanoma spread everywhere, reports the Mirror.
In 2017, Michelle, a mum-of-one, first thought it was just the fabric of her bra irritating her back. But then it started to bleed after she scratched a small mole, leading her to suspect something more sinister.
Michelle called her GP to get it checked out, and within two weeks, she was referred to a dermatologist. They reassuringly said it was nothing to worry about and asked the mum, who worked as a neuro physio, to return in three months just in case, telling her to keep an eye on it. But the itchiness persisted, and it grew darker.
