Stonehenge outrage over Just Stop Oil hides the real vandalism

  • Post last modified:June 20, 2024
  • Reading time:10 mins read


Yesterday, politicians took to X to show their outrage at Just Stop Oil Protestors ‘vandalising’ Stonehenge – a UNESCO World Heritage site. However, it seems that that outrage is very much smoke and mirrors. Obviously, they have all been very quiet about the plans set in motion to build a tunnel containing a dual carriageway on part of the very same UNESCO site.

As the Canary’s Steve Topple reported yesterday, protesters used ‘eco-friendly, washable orange cornflour’ – which wouldn’t even hurt a fly – to demand that the UK government commit to a plan to end the use of fossil fuels by 2030. Yet we quickly saw disproportionate outrage from politicians of various parties. As always, most of their tweets were suspiciously similar.

Faux outrage

Back in 2017, the government approved a £2bn development to construct a dual carriageway through the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. Importantly, campaigners said the tunnel would do “irreparable damage to the landscape” – but the plans never changed.  So why the fuck are they pretending they care about a bit of cornflour?

Earlier this year, New Civil Engineer reported:

Campaign group Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) had contested the granting of the DCO, claiming that the government had not considered the risk to the Stonehenge monument, had not assessed the climate impact of the scheme and had not properly assessed alternative routes that would take the road around the site without the need for tunnelling.

In 2021, the High Court threw the plans out over environmental concerns, but in 2023 the Department for Transport approved it again. They expect building to begin in 2025:

The proposed tunnel is 3km long. As the UNESCO site is 5.4km wide it is widely agreed that the tunnel is far too short to protect a site that wide. The crowd justice site to save Stonehenge states:

Twin tunnel portals, deep dual carriageway cuttings, and slip roads would be constructed within the World Heritage Site, along with huge interchanges at its boundaries. Untold archaeological evidence would be destroyed and travellers’ passing view of the Stones would be lost. There would be serious impacts on the natural environment and an inevitable increase in carbon emissions.

UNESCO even threatened to remove the world heritage status from Stonehenge if the tunnel went ahead. Did the government act after that? Did they fuck. They are showing us how much they really value our environment, history and heritage:

Not an isolated incident

Similarly, people were quick to point out that Lake Windermere is also on a UNESCO World Heritage site – the exact lake that the government has allowed water companies to dump literal shit in for months, without consequence.

The fact they are suddenly up in arms about another World Heritage site is bullshit. If they really cared, Windermere would matter too. It is clear all they care about is the optics of imaginary moral outrage:

Stonehenge: historic use as a protest site

Unsurprisingly, Just Stop Oil are not the first people to use Stonehenge as a protest site. Records as far back as 1961 show the site being marked with the words ‘Ban the Bomb’ in the name of nuclear disarmament:

Evidently, the main parties in the general election race forgot to align their priorities. If they really cared about the environment, like they are pretending to – they would have publicly opposed this development from the start. Only the Green Party have spoken out against it.

Clearly our politicians are okay with risking a UNESCO World Heritage site to save a few minutes off their journey. Lets face it though, Starmer and Sunak will be in their climate-destroying private jets anyway.

All we can hope is that digging this tunnel will unleash some historic curse that gives our politicians a shred of human decency. Either that or puts us all out of our misery.

Featured image via PoliticsJOE/YouTube





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