Eco activists should try standing for election

IT’S come to a sorry state of affairs when thousands of police officers have to form a ring of steel to safeguard runners raising money for good causes by completing the London Marathon from being interrupted by zealots trying to force their point of view on the public.

This is not what our country should look like – 50,000 good people challenging themselves in Britain’s greatest mass-participation sporting event seen as the means of gaining publicity by self-regarding protesters threatening disruption.

Thankfully, the marathon passed off without too much disturbance, but only at the cost of a massive police operation, which also had to oversee an absurd demonstration in the capital by Extinction Rebellion, whose supporters lay down in The Mall and pretended to be dead.

Antics like this would be laughable if they weren’t causing so much annoyance to people going about their business or enjoying sporting events.

Think of the Grand National being delayed by protests, its Scottish counterpart where a course invasion was foiled, or the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield, where a match was ruined by the man who leapt onto a table and covered it with powder.

Who do these people think they are? They do not have the right to ram their views down the throats of the rest of us, and it is about time that was made clear to them.

Over the past year, we’ve seen climate activists prevent ambulances getting seriously ill people to hospital by blocking roads, motorways shut and legitimate businesses blockaded, too often while the police either stand by and do nothing, or inquire solicitously after the welfare of protesters instead of dragging them out of the way.

At the weekend, it was reported that police and security services are taking seriously intelligence that protesters are planning to disrupt the Coronation procession on May 6, possibly by targeting horses ridden by troops.

If true, this is unforgivable, posing a threat to the safety – potentially, even the lives – of both riders and horses.

This comes on top of the deplorable trend for throwing eggs at the King on his walkabouts, notably in York, where a man was convicted of a public-order offence for doing so.

It’s too easy to dismiss stuff like this as posturing idiocy, the selfsatisfied and self-regarding acts of people who claim the moral high ground for their actions.

But there is a menacing undercurrent to it, all too apparent in the protesters who have gone to the homes of high-profile broadcasters and attempted to present sham legal documents threatening them with prosecution for failing to promote particular views.

That sense of menace is all too detectable in the upsurge of protests we are seeing. There has to be a suspicion that if events like the Grand National, World Snooker and the Coronation are being targeted, we’re in for a summer of what amounts to guerrilla warfare on public events.

It does not seem to occur to those responsible that the more they seek to cause disruption the less likely it is the public will listen to their views, let alone sympathise.

All these protests do is foster resentment and scorn.

I don’t need an unwashed fanatic from Just Stop Oil lying down in the road or vandalising a painting in a gallery to tell me that action needs to be taken on the climate, and nor does anyone else.

There is public consensus on the need to address the threats to the environment, cross-party political support for measures to tackle it and a determination amongst the young, in particular, that this should happen urgently and not at some vague point in the future.

If these protest groups really wish to legitimise their claims for immediate and drastic measures on the climate that go much farther and faster than anything the political and scientific establishments consider feasible, then they should put up candidates for election.

The council polls next month present an opportunity for that, and then a general election next year would be a measure of how much public sympathy they really command.

The suspicion has to be that candidates standing on such a ticket would probably lose their deposit, but nevertheless the campaign would give them a chance to make their case in a civilised manner and solicit support.

In the meantime, these protesters have been indulged for too long. They abuse our country’s tradition of tolerance for peaceful protest by seeking to shock and cause inconvenience, or even injury.