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Phoebe Plummer
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At 8 am this morning (July 29), seven Just Stop Oil supporters blocked departure gates at Gatwick Airport’s southern terminal with their bodies and suitcases. Videos recorded by the group show passengers with suitcases continuing their journeys as they step over protestors positioned on the floor. 

The protest is part of the group’s international campaign, Oil Kills, which demands the end of the extraction and burning of oil, gas, and coal by 2030. 21 other groups across 12 countries have already demonstrated at 17 different airports. On Saturday (July 27), a Just Stop Oil protester was also detained and forcibly removed by police for holding a ‘Oil Kills’ sign at London’s Heathrow Terminal Five (pictured above). Days earlier, on July 25, seven other protesters were arrested at the airport’s perimeter fence, on suspicion of “conspiracy to disrupt” Heathrow. 

In a video posted by the group on Instagram this morning, the group shared a message from Mel, one of the protestors arrested at the Gatwick Airport demonstration this morning. “My name is Mel, and I’m taking action with Just Stop Oil at an airport this summer. Not because I want to stop people from going on holiday but because I’m terrified of what’s going to happen to my family and friends with runaway climate breakdown. Fossil fuels are driving us towards climate collapse. Innocent people around the world are already perishing in deadly heat and being washed away in floods. It’s simple oil kills.” 

She ends the video detailing the campaign’s primary objective: “That’s why we’re demanding that our government work with other governments around the world to phase out fossil fuels and agree on a legally binding treaty to end coal, oil, and gas by 2030, and help other countries get off fossil fuels, too.”

By 9:15 am, the airport announced that Gatwick was “open and operating normally today” as the protestors had been arrested and removed by Sussex Police. 

This latest demonstration follows the sentencing of five Just Stop Oil members, including co-founder Roger Hallam, for “conspiracy to cause public nuisance”. Their Zoom call, where they discussed how to recruit volunteers and cause “the biggest disruption in modern British history”, was infiltrated by a journalist from the Sun, who contacted the police. This resulted in four to five-year prison sentences for the activists — some of the longest we’ve ever seen given to individuals for peaceful protests in UK history.   

From prison, Hallam told the BBC that direct action is the “right strategy” and that while these long sentences may deter some people, others will grow more determined.