Just Stop Oil twitter: climate group and Met Police 'squabble like school children' after arrests made in London

Climate activist group Just Stop Oil (JSO) and the Met Police have been ridiculed for “squabbling like school children” on social media. It comes as JSO protesters held a demonstration outside the Metropolitan Police’s central London headquarters today (Saturday 2 December) which has seen at least two activists carried into waiting police vans.

JSO, which has carried out a string of recent “slow marches,” billed Saturday’s protest as a “mass march” through the capital “in solidarity with the innocent climate prisoners”. It came after the Met said it had “arrested JSO activists on 649 occasions, with 338 charges secured so far” since the “start of their latest campaign of disruption” on 30 October.

On the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, JSO posted that activists were arrested on the pavement today. However, the Met took to the platform to respond to and correct the activist group.

The Met posted in response: “JSO claim we’re arresting people for protesting on a pavement. That’s not accurate… One of these activists was arrested for breaching bail conditions set by the court. The other was wanted on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence after alleged antisemitic remarks were made at a protest. Both are on their way to custody.”

Rebecca Tidy responded to the Met’s post saying: “This thread is actually quite funny. The Met and JSO are squabbling like school children. JSO told tales to the teacher. Then in that last tweet, the Met claimed to the teacher that JSO was actually telling lies. The Met's tone is so offended and indignant.”

JSO responded to the Met saying the force is “lying” about “arrests on the pavement”. The group said: “Nice to see you've edited this post to add in ‘alleged’. Police desperate to smear protesters. You are supposed to be impartial. As for claiming we are lying about arrests on the pavement, you know common bail conditions are now not to protest on the pavement.”

It comes after 16 JSO activists were arrested following staging a protest outside Rishi Sunak's west London home on Wednesday night (29 November). Protesters sat on the cobbles outside the mews house in the dark, and some held signs with slogans about environmental issues, including "COP Failure=Crop Failure". No 10 declined to comment on the incident.