It's time to clamp down on militant protesters

The right to protest against the policies of the government of the day, the system in general or even just to ‘stick it to the man’, as 1960s radicals used to put it, is fundamental to a free society.

But when the freedom to protest is deliberately used by activists to take away the freedom of others to go about their normal lives then we reach an ethical crunch point. One man’s freedom has then become, as it were, another’s suppression and the law must adjudicate between the competing claims.

So it is with the campaign tactics of various climate alarmist groups that have sprung up such as Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain and most recently Just Stop Oil. By trespassing on parts of the oil supply infrastructure in the past week, the latter group has succeeded in interrupting deliveries to petrol stations, leaving many people unable to fill their cars and thereby wrecking countless Easter holiday plans and the working lives of millions of people.