Environmental campaign group Just Stop Oil said it is to cease direct action, with a final protest in Parliament Square on 26 April.
The campaign group announced it would be the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets as they plan to hang up the hi vis and stop direct action.
Just Stop Oil’s initial demand was the end new oil and gas, which is now a government policy. The campaign group said they have kept kept over 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground and the courts have ruled new oil and gas licences unlawful.
Although it will no longer be taking direct action, it will continue to speak in court for their “political prisoners” and call out anti-protest laws in the UK.
The announcements comes after new laws have made it increasingly difficult and risky to carry out disruptive protests.
In particular, new offences of interfering with key national infrastructure, including “locking on” and a revision of the law around causing a public nuisance have been used to criminalise climate activists and hand them long jail terms.
“This is not the end of civil resistance. Governments everywhere are retreating from doing what is needed to protect us from the consequences of unchecked fossil fuel burning,” Just Stop Oil said in a statement.
“As we head towards 2°C of global heating by the 2030s, the science is clear: billions of people will have to move or die and the global economy is going to collapse. This is unavoidable. We have been betrayed by a morally bankrupt political class,” it added.
The environmentalists said they need to take a different approach and are creating a new strategy that’s not direct action.
“As corporations and billionaires corrupt political systems across the world, we need a different approach. We are creating a new strategy, to face this reality and to carry our responsibilities at this time. Nothing short of a revolution is going to protect us from the coming storms,” Just Stop Oil said in a statement.
Will McCallum, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “Just Stop Oil paid a heavy price for raising their voices at a time when politicians and corporations are trying to silence peaceful protesters – in the streets and in the courts.
“We must not allow our hard-won right to protest to be stripped away, because it is the right that all other rights depend upon. Greenpeace and many others will continue to defend this proud tradition of taking action on issues that matter to make change possible.”
