UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has unveiled plans for a major crackdown on disruptive protests by climate activists, whom she described as “thugs and vandals” trying to hold the public “to ransom.”
Climate activists from groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and Insulate Britain have staged various protests and demonstrations in recent months, causing widespread disruption.
Braverman said: “I will not bend to protestors attempting to hold the British public to ransom. Preventing our emergency services from reaching those who desperately need them is indefensible, hideously selfish, and in no way in the public interest.
Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London, on Oct. 10, 2022. (Jonathan Brady/PA Media)
“This serious and dangerous disruption, let alone the vandalism, is not a freedom of expression, nor a human right. It must stop.”…