How Just Stop Oil was policed to extinction

Yet Jenrick now sees what he once saw as simply disobedience, as criminal. He believes the legal changes have been necessary to deal with the development and proliferation of environmental protest in the UK which he describes as “increasingly extreme.”

It’s a view shared by many other ministers and officials. But the picture is not uniform. A group of 80 MPs, including seven senior Conservatives, and backed by a coalition of environmental campaigners, lawyers, and others, want to see some of the new public order laws repealed.

One of the lawyers backing the repealing effort is Asad Rehman. A former senior campaigner for Friends of the Earth, now executive director of the War on Want charity, he says in certain cases the right to be disruptive is a sign a democracy is functioning healthily:

“If we are to maintain transformative change for climate justice a more nuanced understanding of what constitutes legitimate protest and dissent from government policies are required.”

JSO activists are re-evaluating where they stand. Some are looking for new ways to campaign. The group is working with academics and IT experts to create new communication tools designed to operate in situations of total social collapse, likely in the event of catastrophic climate change.

“We need to be ready for what’s next,” says Daniel, a member of JSO. “We need to be ready for all eventualities.”

Whether the government agrees with JSO or not, the group has already achieved a major reshaping of how protest is managed in Britain. For its members, that will be a powerful reminder that for some shadows on the road to solve the existential crisis can never be ignored, no matter the cost.