Just Stop Oil was policed to extinction – now the movement has gone deeper underground

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Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists are dusting down their placards, digging out their infamous fluorescent orange vests, and charging up their loud hailers — a routine they have gone through many a time before.

It has taken just three years of throwing soup, spraying corn-starch paint and blocking roads – lots and lots of roads – for the troop of climate activists to become one of the country’s most reviled campaigning organisations.

They expect hundreds of activists to turn out on Saturday in Central London.

However, despite appearances, this JSO gathering is going to be very different from what has gone before. For a start, its existence is no secret. And secondly, there is unlikely to be any of the mass disruption that has been seen previously.

In fact, this is their last ever protest. JSO are, in their own words, “hanging up the hi-viz” and ending their campaign of civil disobedience.

The group’s official line is that they’ve won their battle because their demand that there should be no new oil and gas licences is now government policy. But privately members of JSO admit tough new powers brought in to police disruptive protests have made it almost impossible for groups like it to operate.