Just Stop Oil to target roundabouts during Monday rush-hour

Eco-zealots are said to be planning to ‘swarm and block’ roundabouts in a fresh wave of action targeting road users, expected to take place during rush hour tomorrow.

Just Stop Oil protesters have been holding up drivers on various roads for months, including the M25 over recent weeks, and now plan to target London’s major roundabouts.

The anti-fossil fuel campaigners are aiming to cause ‘maximum disruption’ to road users with the new tactic.

The group plans to march, ‘as slowly as possible, from key roundabouts, in multiple teams and timed phases’, according to an operational note obtained by the Sunday Mirror.

Just Stop Oil protesters have been holding up drivers on various roads for months, and now plan to target London’s major roundabouts

‘To increase the disruption caused and invite a police response, this has to take place at the time of highest traffic, that is, morning rush hour,’ the note, sent on encrypted messaging app Signal, read.

Unlike previous protests, which have seen the environmental campaigners sitting in front of cars on busy roads to stop traffic, the planned action will allow traffic to move very slowly behind each march.

The group believes that this new method of demonstrating will be ‘non-injunction breaking and will aim to be non-arrestable’. 

The change of tack, it hopes, means police will be faced with ‘a dilemma’ over whether to allow a ‘legal protest march’ or threaten to arrest protesters, who would still be allowing drivers to progress in their journeys.

An activist puts up a banner reading ‘Just Stop Oil’ on an electronic traffic sign along M25

Met Police boss, Commander Karen Findlay, said the force is ‘fully prepared’ to deal with the anticipated disruption.

It comes as sources told the Mail on Sunday that Rishi Sunak has increasingly expressed his frustration in government meetings about the ‘disruption to law-abiding citizens’ everyday lives’.

Mr Sunak has reportedly told Home Secretary Suella Braverman to convene a meeting with police chiefs at Downing Street to ‘set out the Government’s expectations that the police must fully enforce the law’.

As well as blocking roads, the eco warriors made headlines targeting artwork, including throwing Heinz tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers

A total of 62 people have been charged over M25 protests since March, of which 29 were remanded in custody. 

More than 11,000 Metropolitan Police officer shifts have been dedicated to anti-JSO operations. 

Last month saw a sustained campaign by JSO, involving daily action, in what it described as the ‘biggest ever civil disobedience campaign’.

As well as blocking roads, the eco warriors made headlines targeting artwork, including throwing Heinz tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.