The end of JSO’s actions marks more than a tactical shift, exposing the limits of symbolic resistance in a system built on ecocide

~ Blade Runner ~

Just Stop Oil has announced it is ending its campaign of disruptive action. According to the group, this marks the culmination of a highly successful resistance effort, with “over 4.4 billion barrels of oil kept in the ground”. A final protest is set for Parliament Square on April 26, after which the group will pivot toward legal challenges in the courts.

The group rose to prominence in 2022 with motorway blockades on the M25 and Dartford Crossing. Since then, its most attention-grabbing actions have included disrupting events like Wimbledon, the BBC Proms, and Les Misérables in the West End. The orange powder thrown at Stonehenge in 2024—a Unesco heritage site—drew sharp backlash but also underscored the group’s shift toward symbolic spectacle as a tactic of last resort.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted that oil and gas would remain part of the UK’s energy mix “for decades to come”, and added that public disruption was unnecessary. Keir Starmer himself criticised the group’s tactics and said protesters “must face the full force of the law”—–a stance likely shaped by public backlash to high-profile actions, including the soup thrown at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and chalk paint sprayed onto Darwin’s grave at Westminster Abbey.

Public reaction to JSO’s tactics has been polarised—some moved, others alienated—exposing the contradiction of trying to shift power from within a system that relies on spectacle to dominate public consciousness. New anti-protest laws have been rushed through Parliament, partly in response to their actions. Some jailed activists have had their sentences reduced by the Court of Appeal, but these legal victories come within a broader context of tightening repression. JSO’s turn to legal strategy may reflect a tactical shift—but also the exhaustion of a movement facing diminishing returns from public disruption and rising state hostility.

JSO has recognised that governments today are not just failing to act—they are actively retreating. What little climate ambition once existed is now being rolled back under pressure from fossil capital, geopolitical instability, and a wider turn toward reaction. What JSO has failed to recognise is that the legal system is not merely corrupted—it functions exactly as designed—to protect property, suppress resistance, and preserve the smooth flow of capital. Faced with collapse, the state prioritises profit, control, and repression. Governments haven’t merely failed to protect us—they have regulated and safeguarded the collapse.

The state has a long history of suppressing movements that fight it, systematically imprisoning and criminalising those who resist racism, borders, colonial violence, and capitalism itself. It should not have taken the jailing of environmentalists for these dynamics to become visible. Still, the group’s belated awakening is welcome—a reminder of how unevenly repression is felt, and how vital it is for climate movements to engage with the full landscape of social struggle and state violence.

Talking about tactics, JSO, like Extinction Rebellion before it, helped popularise a model of spectacular, low-barrier activism: emotionally shallow, highly visible, and media-friendly. This bypassed the long-term commitment to grassroots organising, and offered a platform to anyone willing to risk arrest. That came at a cost. Hundreds were arrested, many jailed. Public tolerance wore thin. And for all the headlines, the impact on emissions, extraction, or capital flows remains unclear—if not negligible, in the face of accelerating ecocide.

Their newfound optimism about court victories is also misleading. Thirteen more North Sea oil and gas developments remain in the pipeline, and they could still be approved if companies argue compatibility with climate targets. Whether through legal channels or direct action, reformist climate groups can reinforce the illusion that we live in a responsive democracy that can be forced to manage the ecological dead end we’re in. Legal wins cannot bend the emissions curve. They cannot resolve capitalism’s structural need for endless expansion.

As JSO themselves now concede: “Nothing short of a revolution is going to protect us from the coming storms”. We might add that the storms—as well as the revolution—are already here, unfolding unevenly, violently, and in full view.