‘Just Stop Oil ruined my mother’s funeral – they must know the British public aren’t on their side’

It has forced the public to endure more than three years of vandalism, soup throwing and massive road disruption. So when the climate action group Just Stop Oil announced it would disband at the end of this month, it seemed to herald a peaceful new dawn.

But now the Met Police has issued warnings about offshoot groups of Just Stop Oil causing a summer of disruption. One such splinter group is Youth Demand, a student-led campaign which has threatened to “shut London down”. It is demanding that the Government stop all trade with Israel, and make the “super rich and fossil fuel elite” pay damages to the communities and countries harmed by fossil fuel burning. The figure it suggests is £1 trillion by 2030.

A Met spokesman told The Telegraph: “It would be naive to take our eye off the ball just because Just Stop Oil have said they are withdrawing from direct action.

“We know that many of their hardened supporters and groups associated with them will keep trying to stop ordinary Londoners from going about their daily lives by causing mass disruption. It is our job to stop them.”

For Amanda Bishop, Just Stop Oil’s decision to disband was welcome news.

“I’ll be happy to see the back of them,” says the 57-year-old from Bath. In July 2022, five Just Stop Oil protestors climbed onto gantries above the M25. As a result, Bishop became stuck in gridlocked traffic like thousands of other motorists. Unlike others, however, she was driving behind a hearse on the way to her mother’s funeral.

“My mother, Aileen Lansky, had died on the morning of her 90th birthday just a couple of weeks before,” she says. “I was sat in the car with my daughter, my sister and my niece, heading from where my mother lived, near Wraysbury, to Slough Cemetery and Crematorium.

“When we realised the traffic was much, much worse than normal, I had a dreadful sinking feeling,” she says. “We didn’t really understand the scale of what was going on until I had a look online and saw about the Just Stop Oil protestors and realised that the whole motorway would have to be shut down.”

Bishop posted a picture of the traffic on X, writing: “My mother has missed her funeral service because of the [M25] protests. I am in the car behind her half expecting her to jump out. She was a meticulous time keeper and she would be going mad. I’m not feeling amenable to the protestors, that’s for sure.”

The Bishop family made it to the crematorium, but arrived with only 15 minutes to go before the end of the service. “We just ran in,” says Amanda. “It was really distressing, because we had planned this one-hour service with eulogies and music. We wanted her to have a dignified entrance and for us to be able to greet friends and family outside. Instead it was all just incredibly rushed.”

Their considerably shorter service “was basically just ‘She was a great woman, blah blah,’” says Bishop. “After 90 wonderful years of this big matriarch for our family, we wanted to give her a proper send-off and acknowledge her and celebrate her life and we couldn’t do that. Instead, it was almost like some dreadful comedy sketch.”

“[Mum] was one of those people who believed that if you’re early, you’re on time and if you’re on time, you’re late,” she adds. If she had been alive, Bishop says, she would have clipped Amanda and her sister around the ear for what had happened, even though it wasn’t their fault.

When Bishop found out that it was a Just Stop Oil stunt that had caused the chaos she felt angry. “I’m very aware of the issues they’re trying to raise awareness of, but no cause justifies criminal damage,” she says. “Even before this happened to me, I never thought their campaigns persuaded hearts and minds; they just annoyed people and wasted police time. If you have a cause and you want to take action, then do that within the law.

“My mum would have had a lot to say about Just Stop Oil and would have been appalled to hear of any attempted damage to art,” says Bishop. “She was a wonderful woman who for many years was the treasurer of Slough Women’s Aid. She was a great cook and exceptionally well read – she was always asked to be on the quiz team at work because she knew about everything. She was from a tough generation of ‘Just get on with it’ women. I miss her very much.”

Just Stop Oil claims that it is ending its campaign because its aims have been met. “Just Stop Oil’s demand to end new oil and gas is now Government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history,” said Hannah Hunt, an activist for the group, last month. “We’ve made fossil-fuel licensing front page news and kept over 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground, while courts have ruled new oil and gas unlawful.”

But Bishop wonders if they might have called it quits for more cynical reasons, which the splinter groups should heed. “I think they’ve been getting harsher sentences from the courts and it’s probably harder for them to find people who are willing to face the consequences of their actions,” she says.

Just Stop Oil activist Cressida Gethin, a 20-year-old Cambridge University music student at the time, was given a four-year prison sentence for conspiring to intentionally cause a public nuisance for her role in 2022’s M25 protest. The sentence was later reduced to 30 months as judges found that her “immaturity limited her culpability”.

“Obviously their actions had a huge impact on my family, but there are thousands of people who have had their lives disrupted by them,” says Bishop. “Perhaps they’ve finally realised that the British people aren’t on their side.”

Indeed, footage of Just Stop Oil interrupting a performance of The Tempest, starring Sigourney Weaver, at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane in January, showed audience members booing and shouting “idiots”, “Drag them off stage” and “I hope you f---ing get arrested”.

“I was so pleased when I heard the news that they’re stopping,” says Bishop. “I’m not sure they achieved anything other than endless publicity.”

According to sources within Just Stop Oil, the group is planning a final protest in Parliament Square on April 26. That also happens to be Amanda Bishop’s birthday. So, she adds wryly, she’ll have another reason to celebrate.