We, the Hated review – standing up to be abused: behind the scenes with Just Stop Oil

‘Hated” is not putting it too strongly. The strength of feeling against Just Stop Oil, as caught by this documentary, is really disturbing. It’s filmed from inside the climate group’s protests, and as activists block roads, furious drivers hurl abuse. “Have a wash you fucking idiots!” “Middle class wankers!” It gets physical, too – punching, kicking and dragging. One man appears to drive his van at protesters. Another walks along a line of them, pouring water over their heads, one by one.

Film-maker Rich Felgate could not be closer to the action; his girlfriend, Indigo Rumbelow, is an activist. “Don’t look at the camera. I’m a fly on the wall,” he tells her at their shared house, where books about the suffragettes and Gandhi are on the shelves. On the streets, activists glue themselves to roads and fasten their necks together with bike locks. In October 2022, campaigners notoriously lobbed tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. At one road shutdown an angry driver shouts: “You’re children.” But they’re not all young; a vicar in late middle age with Parkinson’s quickly takes his medicine before he’s cuffed.

The group’s strategy is to stay disruptive, stay in the news. We watch Just Stop Oil spokespeople appear on TV in increasingly hostile interviews. Their argument is that the planet is in crisis, there is no time to lose. Piers Morgan et al tell them their message is lost in the tactics. And it does look like that: by targeting infrastructure that hits ordinary people rather than going at the fossil fuel industry directly, Just Stop Oil throws away goodwill generated towards protesters acting on their consciences. Still, they claim a victory when Labour wins the election in 2024, pledging no new licences for gas and oilfields. (It seems that last week’s go-ahead for the Jackdaw North Sea gasfield does not break that pledge, since it already holds a licence.)

As Just Stop Oil actions escalate, Rumbelow and other activists are arrested and jailed, handed down the longest-ever prison sentences in England for nonviolent protest. When the credits roll, you have to wonder who the real vandals are..