Politics Online: Just Stop Oil & DUP

• This document is issue 43 of Politics Online, dated March 31, 2025.

Just Stop Oil

• Just Stop Oil announced the end of their civil resistance campaign against new fossil fuel extraction licensing.
• Just Stop Oil claim their campaign, started in February 2022, helped make their aim government policy.
• Key tactics include blockading the M25 motorway, halting events, and defacing artworks.
• Changes to the law now give police and courts more powers to punish those involved in disruptive protests.
• M25 protestors received jail sentences of up to five years, with some recently reduced on appeal.
• These were the longest jail sentences for non-violent civil disobedience ever handed down.
• Governments are reticent to credit pressure groups that use radical methods.
• Aligning with such groups may cause an electoral backlash
• Another pressure group with similar climate views is likely to replace Just Stop Oil.

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)

• March 29, 2025, marked one year since Jeffrey Donaldson's resignation as DUP leader after his arrest for historical sexual offenses.
• Gavin Robinson, the MP for East Belfast, replaced Donaldson as party leader.
• The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland and holds five seats in the House of Commons.
• The DUP was founded in 1971.
• The DUP became the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland in the early 2000s.
• In 2017, the DUP entered a confidence and supply agreement with Theresa May’s Conservatives.
• Socially conservative views, with many elected officials from evangelical Protestant backgrounds.
• The DUP opposed same-sex marriage and abortion in Northern Ireland.
• They are economically conservative.
• The DUP called for a 'leave' vote during the Brexit referendum.

Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR)

• The government announced its Spring Statement, an annual update delivered to the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• In the 2024 General Election, the Labour party promised to strengthen the role of the OBR.
• Liz Truss sidelined the OBR during her premiership.
• Kwasi Kwarteng announced the mini-budget which he dubbed his 'growth plan'.
• The announced plans included cutting the basic rate of income tax from 20% to 19%, abolishing the highest rate of tax (45%), reversing a planned increase in corporation tax from 19% to 25% and reversing the April 2022 increase in National Insurance.
• The policies were unfunded, with a £45 billion gap in funding.
• Financial markets expressed limited confidence in the plan.
• The British Pound Sterling plummeted in value on international markets.
• The cost of government borrowing quickly rose
• Liz Truss resigned after 44 days.
• The King’s Speech stated there was legislating for a Budget Responsibility Bill that would mandate costings from the OBR.
• The OBR predicts growth of 1.9% but the prediction of 1% growth in 2025 will be problematic
• The government is on track to meet its fiscal targets.

US Government Group Chat Leak

• In March 2025, the Trump administration faced a security breach involving senior officials using the Signal app
• National Security Advisor Mike Waltz added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to a private group chat
• The chat was about sensitive military operations targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen.
• Goldberg's access exposed detailed operational plans, leading to significant casualties.
• The formal structures of the NSC and Cabinet are designed to facilitate secure communications
• Security vulnerabilities resulted from informal communication channels
• The House Intelligence Committee questioned officials involved, raising perjury accusations
• The incident highlighted serious shortcomings in government appointment processes.
• Republican responses to the scandal revealed minimal internal divisions within the Congressional GOP.

US Foreign Policy

• An editor's accidental addition to a 'Signal' group chat among top-ranking Trump officials revealed an upcoming military operation
• This raised many concerns domestically in the US
• The stridently anti-European tone adopted by the Trump administration is a genuine belief.
• There are anti-European ideologues in the Cabinet who favour closer ties with conservative autocracies
• Europe and the UK are encouraged to adopt a more independent defence policy
• The US is becoming an unreliable partner.
• The USA's core Indo-Pacific allies Japan, South Korea and Australia could abandon the US alliance.
• There may in a ‘worst-case' scenario see a nuclear arms race in the region
• US officials seem to be very willing to offer Russia most of the concessions.
• The end of 'Pax Americana' is arriving quickly
• Issue 44 of Politics Online will be published on 21 April 2025.