During Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, Tory MP Gareth Johnson asked Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to consider proscribing Just Stop Oil. When an organisation or group is proscribed, membership becomes illegal and punishable by fines or even imprisonment.
Just Stop Oil is an environmental activist group. It is demanding that the government halt new licences for the exploration of oil and other fossil fuels in the UK.
It describes itself as “a coalition of groups working together to ensure the government commits to halting new fossil fuel licensing and production.”
Its members regularly break the law, most commonly by obstructing traffic on UK highways.
In response to Johnson, Sunak said that the police had his support in tackling the illegal protests but he stopped short of saying that the organisation should be banned.
Gareth Johnson MP calls for Just Stop Oil to be made a prescribed organisation so they can be treated "as the criminal organisation they actually are".
What are the arguments against banning protest groups?#TalkTV | #PMQs pic.twitter.com/mYV8MwNRKa
— TalkTV (@TalkTV) November 23, 2022
