60 people were arrested yesterday in London as campaigners from Just Stop Oil blocked the roads around Parliament Square, attempting to disrupt Andy Burnham’s first Prime Minister’s Questions.

Just Stop Oil ceased activity in March 2025 after the Labour Government adopted the group’s demand – to stop all new fossil fuel liscensing – as policy. However rumours surrounding Burnham’s position on opening two large oil and gas fields in the North Sea began as the new Prime Minister came into power. Those arrested were demanding that the UK government stop approving all further oil and gas developments, and sign a Fossil Fuel Treaty to Just Stop Oil.

In March this year, MPs voted on a motion proposing more drilling for oil in the North Sea. MPs Kirkham, Moon, and Gelderd voted against the Conservative motion, meanwhile Maguire, Law, and George had no vote recorded. The motion proposed opening the Rosebank oilfield and Jackdaw gasfield, both located off the coast of Scotland. They were both granted consent for development by the Conservative Government in 2024, but have been on hold after Greenpeace launched a legal challenge over the decision, saying that the impact of emissions caused by burning extracted oil and gas was ignored by regulators.

They also claim that the developments “won’t cut household energy bills” as the fuel will be sold on the world market and most of it exported, making no material difference to the price UK consumers pay.

Data from the Met Office indicates that 2026 was the hottest summer in recorded history, with almost 3,000 excess deaths caused by the heat in May and June alone. Newquay Weather Station saw record temperatures this year, reaching their highest ever ‘feels-like’ temperature of 37.3°C in June.

2026 was also one of the driest summers on record, delivering record-low food harvests. Chris Jaccarini, food economist at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said:

“With this year’s unprecedented weather impacting all farming sectors – from meat to vegetables to grains – it’s clear that food production is on the front line of climate change.
 
 “In just three years, farmers have faced the wettest winter on record, the hottest summer on record, and now what’s on track to be an even hotter summer. These extremes are making it harder to grow food, reducing yields and leaving farmers with less to sell while many of their costs remain unchanged.”

The impacts of accelerating climate change will only be made worse by the incoming and “unprecedented” El Nino, a naturally-occuring event that is set to bring more storms and rain to the UK over Autumn and Winter.

During the last El Nino event in 2023-2024, Cornwall faced large-scale flooding, with seaside towns like Looe affected the worst. On the day of Storm Ciaran in October 2023, Cormac received 282 calls reporting fallen trees, and 112 individual reports of isolated flooding. 

Flooding in Looe, October 2023. Image via: Cornwall Fire Service

More recently, Storm Gorreti, which hit Cornwall on 8th January this year, elicited calls for an emergency Government respose from Cornwall’s MPs. At the height of the storm, 55,000 households were without power and 16,000 without water. Professor Elizabeth Kendon, head of Climate Projections at the Met Office, said that Storm Gorreti was “very much illustrative of the storms that we might expect in the future with climate change.”

In 2025, Andy Burham publicy endorsed the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty as Mayor of Greater Manchester. The Treaty calls for a Just Transistion, a fair phase-out of oil, coal, and gas, and an end to fossil fuel expansion.

More recently, Burnham has declared he will take a “pragmatic” approach to North Sea oil and gas, with US President Donald Trump claiming that the PM said he would “open up” the fields.

Image via: Just Stop Oil