A Just Stop Oil protester abruptly sat on the floor during the middle of a Sky News interview about the climate activists’ “transgressive” tactics on Monday.
Perhaps showcasing a different way of “flooring” your audience, the group’s spokesperson Zoe Cohen said it was a demonstration of how the group use peaceful but attention-grabbing methods for their cause.
“Unless people do things which are slightly transgressive, non-violently transgressive, people don’t notice the difference,” she told Kay Burley on Monday morning.
“If I do this Kay, if I sit on the floor of your studio, it’s a bit different isn’t it, and it might get noticed because I’m transgressing the rules of an interview,” Cohen said as her interviewer looked down at her, in a slightly bewildered way.
Cohen continued: “People don’t normally do this in an interview, do they? But it’s completely non-violent, not threatening anyone, but it’s a bit different.
“It’s an analogy, right, you have to do things that are a bit different to make people notice.
“When you do things that are a bit different, people notice. When you do things that are the same, and don’t get attention, they don’t cause a national conversation.”
She then claimed the Conservative Party is “funded by oil lobbyists and climate deniers” and suggested: “People in positions of power are knowingly pursuing new oil and gas licences knowing that hundreds of millions of people will die a horrible death because of it.”
Previous reports from The Guardian claimed that the Conservatives received £1.3 million from fossil fuel interests and climate sceptics between 2019 and 2021.
The government has also approved the development of the UK’s first coal mine in 30 years and is expected to give the go-ahead to a new oil and gas field in the North Sea soon, sparking concern the UK would miss its climate targets.
Amid backlash over the decision to mine more carbon-pumping fossil fuels, the government has just said that the UK will be using these methods for energy “for the next few decades”.
Speaking to Kay Burley, Cohen said: “What do ordinary people do when faced with that level of evil? You must resist it. And if all we need to do is sit on the ground, or walk slowly, or throw jigsaws or orange dust that doesn’t harm anyone, that’s incredibly peaceful.
“I guarantee you in the months and years to come, interviews like this will shock people that it wasn’t more obvious that we’re in the most desperate times – and when we look back at these interviews, we’ll all wish we had done everything we possibly could.”
The interview followed a recent escalation in Just Stop Oil’s tactics. The environmental group has disrupted golf, cricket, tennis and snooker tournaments in the last few months, while also covering government buildings in orange paint, too.
As national frustration over the activists grows, Cohen told Sky News that she “hates disrupting people” but that the platform has “no choice”.
“Unless we cause material disruption, it just doesn’t reported,” she added.
The uptick in Just Stop Oil’s protests coincides with the extreme weather which has been sweeping across the world recently, particularly in southern Europe where prolonged heatwaves have caused wildfires on several Greek islands.