If you or I sent a letter to a community organisation or a company or to an individual which contained demands that the recipient must comply with and that failure to comply will invite disruption to the lives and freedoms of the recipient, then we’d be arrested and charged and rightly so. Anyone who did attempt to extort money or support from someone else with threats of violence or disturbance might well end up being convicted under the Blackmail provisions of the 1968 Theft Act.
However there’s a screenshot going around the social media purporting to show a letter allegedly sent by the Just Stop Oil group making demands of the London Pride organisation and concluding with the threat that failing to obey the demands would result in a situation where Just Stop Oil ‘may or may not take action’ at the London’s Pride festivities.
Now of course we should not automatically discount the idea that this letter is a hoax designed to discredit Just Stop Oil, this organisation has after all and by their own actions, garnered an awful lot of opponents. But on the other hand, if it is true and has come from either Just Stop Oil the entity itself or elements within it, then it marks an escalation by the Just Stop Oil group.
Now I’ve no great love for what London Pride has become. It’s no longer a big LGB day out like it used to be and is now, like so many other Pride organisations and events, more interested in centring trans issues instead of LGB ones. However they do not deserve this. I make my displeasure at Pride events known by just not going any more and not spending any money on them. However despite my dislike of how London Pride has turned out they should not be threatened in this manner by a tiny group of eco-fascists. Threatening or giving the impression of threat of disruption in order that Just Stop Oil’s demands are met is the action of a gangster. If this letter is real and presented correctly then JSO need to remember that saying ‘Nice Pride festival you’ve got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it’ is not how to make friends and influence people. What we have here is a classic example of how to not engage in civilised dialogue, if that is the JSO letter is proven to be genuine.
Oh no! This is awful, as usual I Googled the issues behind the story and it doesn’t make pleasant reading.
Styles of protest aside I am struck by the necessity of having the best scientific discourse available about the possible reality, or not, of climate change and if so, subsequent energy policies. There is no point in a simplistic political debate framing the left as realists (or alarmists) and the right as deniers.
Roger Hallam if he’s the really the power behind JSO seems alarmist to the point of irrationality, and they are recruiting in universities where they presumably also have research departments trying make sense of it all.
Having said that, maybe JSO’s Pride protest was one of their better efforts as it hightlighted issues that are emerging about the corporate sponships of Pride for several years now and questions about possible pink/green/rainbow washing?
*sponsorships