🥫 Just Stop Oil Didn’t Fail—The Liberal Class Did

On Thursday, I received several questions from Justin Rowlatt, the BBC Environment Correspondent, about Just Stop Oil’s decision to halt civil disobedience actions. He wanted to speak to me or get a recording of my answers.

I chose to record my response. This way, I wouldn’t be interrupted, and there would be a public record of my words—unedited by the BBC.

The questions, as to be expected, all make the main assumptions of our dying dominant culture—the rigid focus on short-term success and failure. The assumption that this success and failure is about power, that everything worth talking about is on the material plane, that there is no depth, no grace. They boiled down to:

• Was Just Stop Oil’s strategy a failure? Have too few people been willing to make the commitment?
• With the climate crisis worsening, how can you claim any success?
• What comes next?
• If the strategy worked, why change it?
• How do you view groups advocating sabotage?

Here is my personal response, recorded from the prison cell.

The process of setting up Insulate Britain and then Just Stop Oil has been the most enjoyable period of my life. In the sense of working in a culture of implacable dedication to the common good, based upon the values of respect, service, and trust.

Yes, we’ve faced challenges, but our greatest success has been building effective and supportive teams. This is not just an uplifting experience; these organising methods are now spreading into local assemblies, independent candidate campaigns, and wider social change movements. I predict they will transform politics in the next five years. It is all about how we work together.

The Gift of Repression

State repression has been another success. A regime holds power by hiding its true nature. Fear thrives in the unknown. As Hannah Arendt noted, when a regime resorts to mass arrests and imprisonment, it exposes itself—and loses control. The Emperor is shown to have no clothes. The unknown becomes known, and the fear is lost. "It is what it is", as I often put it. And what "it is" is, by definition, limited and, therefore, open to transcendence from any material power. Once this realisation takes hold of a movement, it becomes indestructible. Prison becomes a place of peace, and resistance a form of ecstasy. We achieve wholeness at last.

This divine grace has to be experienced to be understood and will not come to everyone or all at once. This new way of seeing is still in its infancy, but the genie is out of the bottle. As more resistors pass through prison, the fear will evaporate. And when the crises escalate, this power of powerlessness will help bring down the regime.

Successful resistance alternates between confrontation and mobilisation. When repression threatens to crush an organisation, it’s time to shift from direct action to community-building—before regrouping and returning even stronger.

Some will hide, cover their faces, obsess over tactics, and turn to sabotage, forgetting that real power lies in relationships. We won’t make that mistake.

Has Just Stop Oil Failed?

In Justin’s worldview, Just Stop Oil has been a failure. The campaign has had a marginal impact, and the crisis worsens daily.

But let’s be clear:

1. It hasn’t been for lack of trying. Thousands have been arrested, and hundreds have been imprisoned—more than in any other modern UK campaign. We’ve been hit by the harshest laws since the Napoleonic Wars. We face a system intent on the suicide of endless mass death, and it does not intend to let anything get in its way.
2. The real failure lies elsewhere. Since Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain, and Just Stop Oil began, we have pleaded with the liberal class to stand by their supposed values. To speak out, get fired, risk arrest and engage in nonviolent resistance to the point of risking imprisoment. And they have refused.

Journalists, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, artists, civil servants, church leaders, trade unions—all have betrayed the young and the poor through their appalling cowardice. And now, Britain faces devastation.

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, warns that the Gulf Stream could collapse within 20 to 30 years, making our country largely uninhabitable. The UK insurance industry predicts four billion deaths worldwide by mid-century unless emissions are slashed immediately.

The political system will collapse within a decade, as people finally realise the crisis is real.

The Role of The Liberal Class

In my last conversation with Justin, I politely advised him, as a social scientist, to do the most effective thing he could: challenge the BBC to tell the full, unvarnished truth about Britain’s impending destruction—even if it meant being sacked.

He dismissed my words and walked away.

Our elites and leaders have walked away. They will not save us. Only ordinary people can remake our world. And yes, we will have far less material wealth, but we will have spirit. And in the end, that is what truly matters.

Has Just Stop Oil really stopped throwing soup?

Just Stop Oil says it will disband but does this mark an end to the chaos caused by its climate protests?

BBC NewsJustin RowlattBBC News Climate Editor