A Just Stop Oil spokesman has refused to apologise for the disruption caused by the activist group across the capital, as she declares their "job is done".The climate protest group is holding its final direct action in London today, marking the end of a three-year campaign of controversial demonstrations.FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Well, stopping with the orange paint thing, do you, is that because you've achieved your aim, do you think, or because of the police crackdown on your protests are scaring you off a bit?
00:12Good morning, no, good afternoon. Thanks for having me on.
00:14I've got no idea either.
00:19Yeah, our original campaign, which started three years ago, was to just stop oil.
00:27So no new oil and gas in the UK.
00:30And we've achieved that aim. That is now government policy.
00:34So, yeah, job done. It's proof that civil resistance works.
00:39And it's amazing what a small group, the dedicated people can achieve.
00:44But do you think that the way the police have changed the rules and clamped down on your kind of protests have made a difference?
00:51I mean, I believe you were involved in several legal skirmishes, weren't you?
00:56Well, if I can sort of go beyond that question, what the police are doing is what they've been directed to do by the government and the courts.
01:08And what our campaign has also done is it's shone a light on corruption in the government and corruption in the courts.
01:17And if I can just I can see you looking at it.
01:19Can I just interrupt? What do you mean by that?
01:21OK, I'll give you a really, really good example.
01:25So, Richie Sunak thanked Policy Exchange, a right wing think tank in Tufton Street, for writing the anti-protest laws.
01:34Now, Policy Exchange are funded by ExxonMobil and also your own Paul Marshall, who's half owner of GB News.
01:43He gave £890,000 to Policy Exchange and he has a hedge fund with £2 million invested in the likes of Shell and Equinox and Chevron.
01:53So, you can see there it's laid plain, isn't it, that billionaires have bought political power and media influence and they've written the laws that have now arrested around 3,000 Just Stop Oil supporters and put about 180 of us in prison.
02:09Right. You were saying this is a personal campaign against you rather than the fact that you were risking ordinary people's lives by bringing traffic to a standstill on the M25 and in London.
02:20It's very much a personal campaign because I believe a load of farmers took tractors into central London the other week and I don't remember them being arrested and put in prison.
02:30So, yeah, it's personal to Just Stop Oil, isn't it?
02:32But, OK, just very quickly before we go, why this weekend?
02:36We've got the London Marathon, two FA Cup finals, St George's Day parades.
02:40I mean, is it because basically you just are still attention seeking?
02:43It's a celebration of what we've achieved and it's to highlight, showcase what's coming next, which is a need to update our democracy.
02:52And we'd like people to go and sign up to thehouseofthepeople.com because we need a democracy for people, not one for billionaires.
02:59OK, Mitch, talking about people, what would you say to the people whose lives you did disrupt, people who were trying to get to hospital, people in ambulances?
03:05I mean, you cause an awful lot of heartache. Do you think you owe them an apology?
03:11I would say to those people in normal circumstances, this would have been completely out of order, but we're not in normal circumstances.
03:17We're seeing the breakdown of just about every system that we rely on, the collapse of our climate systems, the complete destruction of our weather, of our wildlife and our nature.
03:27So something has to happen. Change has to come. So please go to sign sign up at thehouseofthepeople.com.
03:34OK. All right, Mitch, thank you very much. That is Just Stop Oil spokesperson Mitch Rose there.