Time the police stood up to these eco-zealots

PRANCING hippies blocking Waterloo Bridge, a gaudy pink sailboat parked on Oxford Circus, a bearded eco-warrior superglued to a Docklands train, buildings vandalised, business lost, millions inconvenienced – welcome to London 2019.

For three days the group calling itself ‘Extinction Rebellion’ has brought central London to a standstill in an infantile, muddle-headed demonstration against what they see as the Government’s inaction against climate change.

Meanwhile the police and mayor Sadiq Khan have failed to act decisively enough, giving these anti-capitalist cranks – mostly from comfortable middle - class backgrounds – licence to disrupt the everyday life of the city.

Incredibly, Mr Khan went so far as to thank the protesters for their ‘co-operation’ (heaven knows how bad things would have been if they’d been unco-operative). And even those who were arrested were soon released to rejoin the revels.

All that seemed to be missing from this tawdry New Age circus was a burning wicker man.

What other capital in the world would have allowed such a fiasco? Yes, peaceful protest is our inalienable right. But there must be limits. The police also have a duty to keep the metropolis moving.

This demonstration is perverse on almost every level. Firstly, the idea that people are unaware of climate change is risible.

Turn on the BBC any time and you’ll almost certainly hear someone pontificating about the looming death of the planet.

Equally, this country has done more than almost any other to cut emissions – through green taxes, renewables and the punitive new Ultra Low Emission Zone in London.

Furthermore, Britain is responsible for just 1 per cent of global carbon emissions. Even if we banned all fossil fuels and motor vehicles and lived in a state of pre-industrial simplicity, the effect would be negligible.

If these eco-warriors really want to affect climate change, they should perhaps take their protest to China, which has been responsible for some 60 per cent of the increase in global CO2 emissions over the past ten years.

But they should be warned, the Chinese police may be rather less understanding than Scotland Yard.

The other great contradiction is that the protesters have closed bus and rail connections, forcing more commuters into their cars on the clogged roads, emitting huge clouds of unnecessary fumes.

Enough is enough. They have made their point and the police – instead of engaging in cosy chats – should now clear them from the streets.

London is one of the world’s great cities. Allowing its people to be held to ransom by a bunch of sanctimonious eco-zealots is an utter disgrace.