Oil company anti-protest injunctions

[paulfromcamden]

Jaw-dropping report by the BBC on the private injunctions being taken out by councils and fossil fuel companies.

The civil injunctions - in force at places like oil terminals, petrol stations and racetracks across England and Wales - also apply to “persons unknown”, meaning anyone could be prosecuted.

The anti-protest injunctions limit what people can do, who they can associate with and where they can go.

The punishment for breaching one can be up to two years imprisonment or an unlimited fine - a heavier penalty than for equivalent offences in criminal law.

Few applications to the High Court are challenged because legal aid is not available for the initial hearing, says lawyer Raj Chada. Protesters can argue their case at a second hearing, but must abide by the injunction's rules until then.

Sarah Benn, a retired GP from Birmingham, was imprisoned for 32 days in 2022 for repeatedly breaching an injunction preventing protests near Kingsbury Oil Terminal in Warwickshire, the largest inland oil storage depot in the UK.

Her breach consisted of protesting on a grass verge and sitting on the private road leading into the terminal.

North Warwickshire Borough Council - which took out the injunction - has declined to comment as it is applying to the High Court to renew the measure for three more years.

A Freedom of Information request submitted by the BBC shows North Warwickshire council officers met oil company representatives 10 times, partly in relation to obtaining the injunction. The council does not hold minutes of the meetings. The request also reveals the council spent £155,000 on legal fees in the process.

Lawyer Raj Chada argues the proliferation of injunctions amounts to “private justice” - only available to those who can afford to pay.

Protesters risk being ordered to pay their opponents’ legal bills if they make an unsuccessful challenge to the injunction, he says. “[This} can run to hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

This feels like a massive over-reach. Very hard to see how it is in the public interest.

Civil injunctions restrict protests at 1,200 locations, BBC finds

Companies and public bodies are using court orders to prevent environmental protests taking place.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[les24preludes]

Hopefully this will be met by reciprocal civil injunctions against oil companies for polluting the planet and anything else that stands up in court.

 

[garyi]

Well as long as people don’t spray Stonehenge in paint we are all good.

 

[Pravda]

Another reason to kick the tories out

Energy Minister Greg Hands said:

While we value the right to peaceful protest, it is crucial that these do not cause disruption to people’s everyday lives.

That’s why I’m pleased to see oil companies taking action to secure injunctions at their sites, working with local police forces to arrest those who break the law and ensure deliveries of fuel can continue as normal.

 

[Finnegan]

This feels like a massive over-reach. Very hard to see how it is in the public interest.

This is actually a demonstration of immense weakness. They cannot substantiate their dodgy arguments; whether scientific or economic, and cannot refute the arguments and motivations of the protestors. So they resort to repression. The hallmark of out of touch, authoritarian regimes everywhere.

 

[Vinny]

Excellent, although how this has anything to do woth party politics, I cannot see. It is the Courts.

They achieve nothing except to be a total PITA to everyone else.

As posted here before, the world functions on oil products. 30% of crude oil is not burnt - that is around a trillion tonnes per year. Nothing whatsoever, at all, in mordern life does not rely on oil somehow, somewhere. Some of it, especially such things as food, could be produced without, but cost many, many times what it does when using oil products. Just at the simplest level, organic produce relies on fossil fuel for loads of operations.

I would bet extremely good money that the coloured powder used on Stonehenge was in part an oil product too, and if not, it relied on oil to be produced from natural products.

Stop Oil is gold-plated nonsense of the first order.

 

[Kirk]

This is actually a demonstration of immense weakness. They cannot substantiate their dodgy arguments; whether scientific or economic, and cannot refute the arguments and motivations of the protestors. So they resort to repression. The hallmark of out of touch, authoritarian regimes everywhere.

Protestors are not barred from giving their opinions or making the argument.

 

[paulfromcamden]

To the members cheering: what's your view of a 32 day prison sentence for sitting on a grass verge (with no recourse to legal aid) and what makes you think these powers will be limited to environmental protest?

 

[Finnegan]

Seems like I can make the argument and give my opinion, as long as I stand in a police sanctioned little pen, disturbing nobody and nothing, while the planet continues to fry.

Go on Twitter to find any number of memes featuring biblical glacial melt in northern Italy and Switzerland, and devasting droughts and floods elsewhere, with the caption “these damn Just Stop Oil protestors are disrupting everyday business.”

People’s cars, homes, livestock, livelihoods and lives are being destroyed. But they better not f*cking well make me twenty minutes late for my appointment at the bloody optician.

 

[Tony L]

The real danger to our future is water-soluble orange paint.

 

[Vinny]

Go on Twitter to find any number of memes featuring biblical glacial melt in northern Italy and Switzerland, and devasting droughts and floods elsewhere, with the caption “these damn Just Stop Oil protestors are disrupting everyday business.”

Nothing to do specifically with oil, all due to combustion of many different things, albeit including around 60% of oil that is recovered, but coal, gas, wood, the Amazon...........................

Nothing, literally nothing, in the modern world has no connection with/demand for oil, even ignoring fuel. Even hydrogen-powered and electric transport requires oil products, not least for lubrication. They will also, no doubt, use loads of petro-chemical adhesives, paints and sealants, plus plastics. Any pressed steel parts will need die lubricants, machined parts will need coolant-lubricants .....................the list is all but endless. Tyres. Electrical insulation. The mass of exotic materials in modern car discharge lamps. Are lamp clusters going back to glass lenses and reflectors?

 

[Mick P]

Well as long as people don’t spray Stonehenge in paint we are all good.

What's wrong with spraying a lump of stone orange if it helps to drawn attention to over consumption of oil or oil based products. It's being done by young people and they are the ones who have to inherit the mess that we have made.

Everyone moans about the over use of oil and oil based products and yet every week I am seeing artificial grass lawns that are being laid in gardens that are an environmental disaster. These are being laid everywhere just so some lazy bugger won't need to mow a lawn.

Most people squawk about things but only a few actually try to do something about it and I admire them for taking action rather than talking about it which achieves nothing.

Unfortunately it's one way or the other, you can't have it both ways.

 

[Vinny]

What's wrong with spraying a lump of stone orange if it helps to drawn attention to over consumption of oil or oil based products. It's being done by young people and they are the ones who have to inherit the mess that we have made.

It has nothing to do with over consumption either.
It is all to do with combustion and improper disposal.

Protest for better recycling, more money into hydrogen fuel cell research and hydrogen infrastructure - actually apply some common sense.

 

[Mick P]

It has nothing to do with over consumption either.
It is all to do with combustion and improper disposal.

Protest for better recycling, more money into hydrogen fuel cell research and hydrogen infrastructure - actually apply some common sense.

You may well be right but the reality is that right now today we are killing the planet. Everyone complains about it and then does nothing about it. These people are merely forcing our hand because we need to be forced.

 

[Fatmarley]

It's all about the oil.
I've read in a few places that since 2019 92% of Reform UK has been funded by gas or oil interests. A TikTok video explaining this has been spammed to hell by "Vote Reform posts". I've never seen so many Bots commenting on a single video.

There are a staggering amount of people that believe climate change caused by humans is nonsense. All fuelled (pun not intended or appropriate) by propaganda founded by oil companies... Direct them to all the data on the NASA website and they just laugh. Facts don't matter to these people.

 

[Vinny]

You may well be right but the reality is that right now today we are killing the planet. Everyone complains about it and then does nothing about it. These people are merely forcing our hand because we need to be forced.

The UK is leading the world in terms of renewable energy generation.
The infrastructure could not come within light years of coping with every vehicle going electric - the reliable generating capacity and distribution capability of the UK would have to roughly double - for that the protesters need to start by protesting for any form of renewable/green/non-polluting energy generation, and that would have to include nuclear (3? years ago the UK green energy generation dropped like a stone - there was too much cloud cover and too little wind).

There is no alternative to large diesel engines yet either - protest for more research money into that.

 

[ff1d1l]

It has nothing to do with over consumption either.
It is all to do with combustion and improper disposal.

Protest for better recycling, more money into hydrogen fuel cell research and hydrogen infrastructure - actually apply some common sense.

Plenty of synthetic lubricants, and non oil based plastics.
Why piss about with hydrogen fuel cells when renewables generate electricity efficiently? Hydrogen is a very difficult substance to contain, some - most - current piping and seals are porous to it IIRC.
Needs leaving in the ground, and good luck to all campaigning for this.

 

[Tony L]

It's all about the oil.
I've read in a few places that since 2019 92% of Reform UK has been funded by gas or oil interests.

Yes, the fossil fuel lobby is huge. It is behind all manner of shady Tufton St lobbying groups that form Tory policy. Fossil fuels bought Sunak rolling back our environmental protections (£1.5bn contract from BP to Infosys etc). As ever follow the money. The political right is largely funded by fossil fuels, it is why they are so happy to sell climate science denial and other conspiracy theory. “We have no need for experts” and all that. Facts have no place in right-wing grift.

 

[Mike Hughes]

You may well be right but the reality is that right now today we are killing the planet. Everyone complains about it and then does nothing about it. These people are merely forcing our hand because we need to be forced.

Hopelessly inaccurate. We are not killing the planet at all. We’re certainly changing it but the thing we’re killing is current diversity and us. The planet will be just fine. We will not.

I do adore the “you must have oil and everything else is so expensive”. Utter bollocks on both fronts.

 

[Mick P]

The UK is leading the world in terms of renewable energy generation.
The infrastructure could not come within light years of coping with every vehicle going electric - the reliable generating capacity and distribution capability of the UK would have to roughly double - for that the protesters need to start by protesting for any form of renewable/green/non-polluting energy generation, and that would have to include nuclear (3? years ago the UK green energy generation dropped like a stone - there was too much cloud cover and too little wind).

There is no alternative to large diesel engines yet either - protest for more research money into that.

To be fair to the protestors, they are saying stay away from oil. They are leaving it to politicians and industrialists to decide how to do it.