Who are the protestors behind Youth Demand, the pro-Palestine climate activism group?
Just Stop Oil announced they would be stopping direct action after the government announced it would not be issuing licences for oil and gas explorations. This means no more soup thrown at paintings, no more sitting on motorways, and no more orange powder thrown across everything from Stonehenge to snooker tables. But anyone who thought all of that was over would be wrong, as another activist group appears to be taking up the mantle already.
Youth Demand is a resistance campaign led by young people which is run by the same organisation as Just Stop Oil, called Umbrella. According to Umbrella, Youth Demand’s focus is on “making The Labour Party’s f***ery clear by exposing their complicity in genocide: the Palestinian genocide and the global genocide from burning fossil fuels.” The group was established in 2024 and is calling on the government to end all trade with Israel, and to raise £1 trillion from the super rich by 2030 to “pay damages to communities and countries harmed by fossil fuel burning”.
A member of campaign group Youth Demand spraying Labour HQ with red paint
via REUTERS
Like Just Stop Oil, Youth Demand protest through civil disobedience, and they are ramping up their actions. “In April, Youth Demand will shut London down with swarming road-blocks day after day after day,” reads their website.
The group is made up of Just Stop Oil alumni, students and young activists and have carried out stunts including a pro-Palestine protest outside Keir Starmer’s home in Kentish Town when he was leader of the opposition, and for defecating in the lake of then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire home.
Youth Demand demonstrators hung a banner outside Sir Keir’s house that read: “Starmer stop the killing”
Youth Demand/PA Wire
Last Thursday, Youth Demand were holding a welcome talk which was open to the public at a Quaker meeting house in Westminster. Dozens of police stormed the meeting and six women were arrested and taken into custody. Meanwhile, the homes of other Youth Demand activists were raided by police.
The group have said they have had over 200 people express interest in joining since the news hit headlines. Who are some of its key members?
Sarti was arrested in 2023 for spraying orange paint on King’s College Cambridge
Just Stop Oil / X
25-year-old Chiara Sarti is studying for a PhD in computer science at Cambridge and is a spokesperson for Youth Demand. They moved to the UK from Rome over eight years ago. Sarti is also a member of Just Stop Oil and sprayed King’s College Cambridge with orange paint in October 2023. The following month, they were arrested and sentenced to 100 hours of community service for taking part in a slow walk down Earls Court Road with Just Stop Oil. As spokesperson for Youth Demand, Sarti has clashed with Right-wing presenters on GB News and TalkTV, and given interviews about the group’s aims. “We’ve seen just the massive influence, that massive amount of power, that we can exercise when we put our bodies on the gears of the machine, when we step in to subvert systems, dominating the political narrative,” they told the Guardian last year. “From zero to being in the media conversations. We are just getting started.”
PA
Eddie Whittingham was banned from Exeter University’s campus after disrupting his own graduation ceremony by spraying orange paint across the courtyard, shouting “Just Stop Oil” as he was arrested. The university cited a “duty of care” to its students. Whittingham also halted the World Snooker championships in April 2023 by throwing orange corn starch over the table. He was ordered to pay £899 in damages and carry out 200 hours of community service. Whittingham is now a supporter of Youth Demand and his home in Exeter was raided by police on Friday morning. He took part in a legal road swarm in Exeter, where protestors stepped out into the road with banners for ten minutes. “This is unfortunately what we can come to expect,” he said in a video shared by Youth Demand, as police searched his bedroom. Whittingham was arrested and released without charge.
Ella Ward, Zosia Lewis and Daniel Formentin
Sir Keir Starmer’s wife felt ‘a bit sick’ when she encountered a Youth Demand pro-Palestine protest outside their family home, a court has heard (Jonathan Brady/PA)
PA Wire
Three Youth Demand activists were found guilty of public order offences and given suspended prison sentences after staging a pro-Palestine protest outside Keir Starmer’s home in Kentish Town last year. Ella Ward, Zosia Lewis and Daniel Formentin lined up rows of children’s shoes in Starmer’s front garden and sat on the street in front of the house with a sign that said “Starmer stop the killing”. During the trial, Lady Victoria Starmer said the protest had made her feel “a bit sick” and “apprehensive”. Both Ward and Formentin are from Leeds, and Lewis is from Newcastle.
Ella-Grace Taylor was one of the six women arrested at the meeting last Thursday. In a video following her release from custody she described “roughly 30 police breaking down the door of a Quaker meeting house” and seizing everyone’s phones and laptops. “This is insane, this is the level of state repression that we are living in,” she added. Taylor, 20, is a drama student at Mountview drama school in Peckham.
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Lia Anjali-Lazarus went to the welcome talk at the Quaker meeting house in Westminster last week
Youth Demand
Another of the women who was arrested is Lia-Anjali Lazarus, who said in a video statement that she was interviewed by police at midnight and her student house was raided at 1am. “I will not be scared by these draconian laws and I will keep taking action with Youth Demand,” she said, adding that she will attend Youth Demand’s protests in April. Lazarus, 20, studies politics and language at UCL. She grew up in Bristol and was one of the city’s youth MPs, where she campaigned on the environment and attended youth climate strikes.
Clegg was arrested after defecating in Rishi Sunak’s lake
Youth Demand
University of Manchester undergrad Oliver Clegg was responsible for one of Youth Demand’s most divisive stunts: emptying his bowels into Rishi Sunak’s duck pond. In June 2024, Clegg and a cameraman snuck into the grounds of the Georgian manor house owned by Sunak, who was Prime Minister at the time, in his North Yorkshire constituency. Youth Demand released an image of Clegg wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words “Eat Sh** Rishi”, with his bare bottom hovering over the lake. “As a final goodbye, we’re issuing a ‘code-brown’ to Mr Sunak and his colleagues in government for 14 years of total failure,” a Youth Demand spokesperson said at the time. Clegg grew up in Cambridge and attended Hills Road Sixth Form College, whose alumni include the late author Sir Martin Amis and Pink Floyd bandmates Syd Barrett and Roger Waters.
20-year-old Starr Thomas has protested outside the BBC with Youth Demand, as well as disrupting the premiere of Andrew Garfield’s film We Live In Time at the London Film Festival last October. Thomas brought a Palestinian flag with the words “Stop arming Israel” onto the red carpet before they were apprehended by security. “Our political system is rotten. The only way to achieve justice is through direct action so I will continue putting my body on the line and using my voice. We cannot have business as usual during a genocide.” Thomas said in a statement released by Youth Demand after the event. Thomas, who identifies as non-binary, is a third-year Applied Theatre student at Goldsmiths University. Before that, they attended Kingsley Academy in Hounslow. They are the campaigns and activities officer at the university and have been involved in protests on campus, including staging a walkout for Palestine last October.
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