Police will this week be told by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to crack down on Just Stop Oil protestors who have regularly blocked to Britain’s roads over the past few months.
The protest group is planning its latest campaign of disruption in and the Mail on Sunday reports that Mr Sunak has increasingly expressed his frustration in meetings about the ‘disruption to law-abiding citizens’ everyday lives’.
The paper says that, although more than 1,800 arrests have been made in relation to the Just Stop Oil movement since March, Mr Sunak has told Home Secretary Suella Braverman to convene a meeting with police chiefs at Downing Street to ‘set out the Government’s expectations that the police must fully enforce the law’.
In the newest series of protests, Just Stop Oil activists are expected to block major roundabouts, glue themselves to the road surface and march slowly in front of traffic.
However the Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens has pointed out that tougher Police action may be difficult in law after the Supreme Court used Human Rights legislation in June last year to rule that deliberately blocking a road as part of a protest amounted to a lawful excuse for obstructing the highway.
(Picture – Just Stop Oil)