Just Stop Oil x BBC (a conversation analysis)
The action group Just Stop Oil has again blocked the M25 motorway around London today, and accounted for its actions in a BBC radio interview. As I thought this interview was extremely well done, I decided to give you an analysis of the conversational and argumentative moves.
Listen to the analysis:
Speakers
- Sarah Montague, BBC journalist
- Alex de Koning, spokesperson Just Stop Oil
- Tony Banbury, affected by Just Stop Oil’s direct action
- The Right Honourable Sir Roger Gale, MP
Transcript
Chris
The action group Just Stop Oil has again blocked the M25 motorway around London today, to push the UK government to—you guessed it—just stop with allowing oil extraction and to act on the climate hell that’s facing all of us.
The BBC’s the World at One had a brief item on the topic this afternoon, which included an interview with Just Stop Oil spokesperson Alex de Koning, which I thought was extremely well done.
So, being a perpetual nerd, I decided to give you an analysis of the conversational moves in the segment to determine what makes this interview so strong.
My main conclusions, in 3 numbered slogans:
- Resist the framing.
- Have facts at hand.
- Nobody’s off the hook.
Let’s now listen to the segment, and unpack these points.
The segment opens neutrally enough, with journalist Sarah Montague setting the scene of Just Stop Oil having blocked parts of the M25.
Sarah Montague
It’s another day when the M25 — the motorway circling London — has been brought to a standstill by Just Stop Oil protesters. The Dartford tunnel in Essex had to be closed. And there were further protests in Hartfordshire, Kent and Surrey.
Chris
Then we move into framing. The BBC has found a person who got caught up in an earlier blockade, and experienced a serious personal loss as a result.
Sarah Montague
When the same thing happened yesterday, Tony Banbury, who lives in Essex, was heading to his dad’s funeral. He didn’t make it.
Not just any serious personal loss. They missed the funeral of a close family member.
Tony Banbury
On the seventh of October my father passed away. Yesterday was his funeral. Normally the journey from Aylesbury to Thundersley where my parents live normally takes about an hour. We all got in the car just before eight o’clock and I thought: Well, the service is due to start at 10.30, giving us at least two and a half hours. Got to the M25 roundabout junction 20, I saw the traffic and then everything stopped. And the estimated time of arrival at the funeral would have been quarter past 11. And the funeral service was starting at half 10. So we had no choice but to then turn the car around and go back home. I had to ring my mother and explain that we can’t make it.
Chris
The choice to frame the issue with the story of a person who experienced significant negative consequences as a results is clear: It is meant to signal that Just Stop Oil’s direct actions are disruptive. Conveniently, the framing brackets any consideration of the larger, systemic issues that the blockade — oil, fossil fuels, how long the planet may stay habitable to humans. Instead, it zooms in on a very concrete, very relatable personal experience that none of us would ever wish to have to go through: missing a parent’s funeral.
But the BBC has more context!
The next person Montague speaks to is The Right Honourable Sir Roger Gale.
Who?
The Right Honourable Sir Roger Gale. A conservative MP who has held the North Thanet constituency in Kent for 39 years.
The same Right Honourable Sir Roger Gale who you might know from having advocated capital punishment, opposed gay marriage, and who has been found to have breached the Parliamentary code of conduct by trying to influence a judge in a sexual assault case. That Right Honourable Sir Roger Gale!
It seems most appropriate to hear that Right Honourable Sir Roger Gale’s opinion on blocking the M25 to urge the government to act now on the climate emergency.
Sarah Montague
That was Tony Banbury. Well the Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale says the protests are unnecessary.
Roger Gale
I understand and respect entirely the right of people to have their voices heard and to demonstrate peacefully and responsibly.
What I don’t have sympathy with is those who choose to disrupt the lives of many other ordinary working people trying to go about their daily business in an orderly fashion.
Chris
Did you catch that? Sir Roger Gale just scored 100 points by using the phrase “ordinary working people” in combination with “daily business” and “orderly” in the same sentence.
Roger Gale
That is simply not acceptable. But this case is being made as we speak in Sharm el-Sheikh, COP27 (the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference). That is what that international gathering is all about. It is about climate change. It is about how we use the earth’s resource resources responsibly.
Chris
Then, about two minutes in, we get to the main item: a conversation with Alex de Koning, a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil.
All the previous framing is useful here. Because Montague can now directly confront de Koning with the misery that the M25 blockade has caused.
Sarah Montague
That was Sir Roger Gale. Well Alex de Koning is a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil. Good afternoon.
Alex de Koning
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for having me on the show.
Sarah Montague
It’s good to have you on. You will have heard Tony Bambury there who missed his father’s funeral yesterday because of the Just Stop Oil protests. What do you say to him?
Chris
The question “What do you say to him?” is meant to keep this conversation at the personal level. None of that systemic stuff.
We have just heard that somebody missed a funeral because of this blockade. De Koning is part of the group that carried out that disruptive action. The implication of the question “What do you say to him?” is: How can this group justify carrying out an action that, in the words of The Right Honourable Sir Roger Gale, “disrupt[s] the lives of many other ordinary working people”?
The framing is a conversational trap.
Having to miss a parent’s funeral is heartbreaking. So whatever justification any interviewee might try to give in response, it’s going to sound heartless and crass.
If the trap succeeds, it’ll be to undermine all sympathy for the Just Stop Oil cause. How can any group be so heartless to cause such disruption?
Except … de Koning doesn’t bite:
Alex de Koning
Yeah that’s truly awful. I’m sorry that you’ve been caught up in that. That’s a terrible thing to happen to anybody and I would be furious too.
[Long pause]
Chris
OK, unexpected. De Koning is actually apologizing and expressing sympathy.
Let’s try to point out that Just Stop Oil initiated the blockade? And so are … responsible?
Sarah Montague
The actions that Just Stop Oil are taking are causing these sorts of difficulties for people every day.
Alex de Koning
They are indeed. And it’s awful that’s happening.
[Long pause]
Chris
Hmmm… same story. Still only contrition. Let’s ask for any justification directly then!
Sarah Montague
So how can you justify closing the roads?
Alex de Koning
Because our government is behaving criminally, Sarah. They’re opening up over 100 new fossil fuel licenses, knowing full well what that means for future generations, for people in the Global South, for our crops, for everything.
Chris
Ha! Good. Now we’re talking. De Koning accuses the UK government of criminal behaviour. But that means we can catch members of Just Stop Oil as being hypocrites. Because is blocking a major motorway not equally outside the law, too?
Sarah Montague
People listening may say: Look, what you are doing, is behaving criminally.
Chris
Nice move. Nobody likes a hypocrite. Except … de Koning does not deny that Just Stop Oil’s action in blocking the M25 are criminal.
Alex de Koning
It is. But it’s also a proportional response to what’s happening in the world right now. What we’re doing is very serious, because what’s happening in the world is very serious right now.
Chris
Ha, the ‘proportional response’ defense. ‘Proportionality’ is a principle in law that can help, say, a judge determine what sort of measures would be fair and just when someone does something that’s forbidden. Such as blocking a motorway.
Alex de Koning
We’ve already this year expected to lose half of our potato crop. We’ve lost a third of our wheat crop already. Our entire fruit and veg structure is about to collapse next year, because of the droughts we’ve had this year.
It’s such a serious issue. It is 2022. And things are this bad ready. Birds have fallen out of the sky during this heatwave. 3000 people died over the course of just two days. Every year things are going to get worse.
Chris
For Sarah Montague, this means it’s time for a different angle. How about playing along with their perspective? How about, for of the sake of the conversation, they take on Just Stop Oil’s view, and suggest that EVEN then, blocking the M25 is still the wrong thing to do. That it’s … counterproductive?
For the record: the charge of being counterproductive is one that has been levelled against every single effective protest group in the history of humanity—from provo to the Black Panthers/Tamil Panthers, from suffragettes to school strikes. Because the way to be effective is always just to be quiet, cause no fuss, and not bother anyone.
So here we go.
Sarah Montague
There will be many people who who would agree with and accept everything that you say.
It’s just what you do about it and whether you wouldn’t be more persuasive if you followed other routes …
Alex de Koning
Such as what?
Sarah Montague
… either of protest, or of lobbying. Whether it is writing to writing to MPs, getting involved in more directly in politics.
Chris
Notice the phrase “more persuasive”. Because what the World at One is really concerned with, is for Just Stop Oil to be maxiamally persuasive.
Alex de Koning
Sarah, do you think we haven’t tried this? Do you think we haven’t been on marches? We haven’t signed petitions? We haven’t tried running for office?
Chris
OK this now suddenly makes it personal, addressing the interviewer themselves directly. (There is this mysterious rule that the interviewer in a formal interview is to be addressed only as a vehicle of a programme, of a station, or just of ‘the people’. In the fiction that is called radio, the interviewer is not supposed to be personally involved.)
Every year this has gotten worse. Every single year for 50 years. I’m going to read you a quote today from Rishi Sunak at COP27 (the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference):
“When you see 33 million people displaced in Pakistan, with disease rife and spreading through the water, you know is morally right to honour our promises.”
And yet, that’s not exactly what he’s not doing.
He’s opening up over 100 fossil fuel facilities. Do you really think that’s a good idea, based on where we are in the world right now?
Chris
Avoiding having to answer a direct question a second time, Montague pushes the you’re-actually-counterproductive line again:
Sarah Montague
Do you recognize though there’s a danger that you could turn people against your cause? Because of the way that you’re going about it?
De Koning doesn’t think so.
Alex de Koning
People are not going to stop recycling because of what we’re doing.
Chris
And makes it personal.
Alex de Koning
Look, what are you doing to help with the climate crisis? You have such a big platform! Why aren’t you telling people about how bad the situation is?
[Long silence]
Chris
Montague decides to respond directly, a second time.
Sarah Montague
And that is … and Alex that is obviously something that we cover on this program.
Chris
And now we’ve shifted.
Now, we’re actually in completely different territory.
Now, we’re onto the negligence of so much of journalism in under-reporting, playing down, and making light of the seriousness of the situation:
Alex de Koning
Nowhere near enough. There are more fossil fueled air pollution deaths than malaria, tuberculosis and HIV combined. I have never heard that …
Chris
Montague sees an opportunity. Might actually … Just Stop Oil itself be responsible for the fact that the BBC isn’t sufficiently covering climate issues? Cha-ching!
Sarah Montague
There is also a COP conference going on at the moment. It might be getting covered, but for the fact that people are covering local issues with the motorways being closed.
Chris
Yeah. Except that all those many COPs are mainly window-dressing to give industry lobbyists a chance to schmooze with policy makers for a couple of days.
Alex de Koning
Last year at COP26 there wasn’t even a mention of oil and gas in the final deal. We don’t need fancy words anymore. We need action.
There was more oil and gas lobbyists at COP26 than indigenous populations on a ratio of two-to-one. Five hundred and three oil and gas lobbyists. And we’re still subsidizing the fossil fuel industry with 200 million pounds every single week during a cost of living crisis.
We need an action. We need radical change.
Chris
That’s where the item ends.
So what can you take from this?
Here are my 3 points again, now properly unpacked:
- Resist the framing. The interviewer might try to make it into an you-vs.-other-people-issue. But climate hell affects all of us. The direct action you take might affect someone now. Acknowledge that, acknowledge them as people. People affected by direct action are not opponents.
- Have facts at hand. Sadly, it appears that not everyone is equally swayed by statistics all of the time. (Weird, innit?) Still, you need to have all your stats and your quotes and your facts at hand, to throw in. To establish the reality of the situation. To confront people why how bad things really are. So have facts at hand.
- Nobody’s off the hook. One of journalists’ favourite quips is to bounce back any query in their direction with the claim that ‘I get to ask the questions here’. But … that’s rather a nice, insulated safe zone to be in, is it not? With a matter as serious as the current climate emergency, maybe it’s time not to let people off that lightly?
So if, someday, you are quizzed by the BBC after having engaged in some direct action (I mean: who knows?), perhaps some of this may be of some of help.