Insulate Britain are ‘irresponsible crusties’, says Boris Johnson

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson has branded climate protesters who have blocked some of the UK’s major roads “crusties”, as the Government prepares to set out new measures to tackle the demonstrations.

In an interview with LBC, at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, Mr Johnson risked inflaming a crisis which has already led to disruption on some of London and the South East’s busiest roads including the M25, the M1 and M4. On Monday protesters from Insulate Britain blocked the Blackwall Tunnel and Wandsworth Bridge.

“There are some people who call those people legitimate protesters – they are not,” the Prime Minister said. “I think they are irresponsible crusties who are basically trying to stop people going about their day’s work and doing considerable damage to the economy.

“That’s why we have taken the powers and why Priti Patel is doing the right thing to bring in powers so they can get six months or an unlimited fine – or we have section 60 powers to stop and search the whole area.”

In a speech to the Conservative Conference on Monday Home Secretary Priti Patel was expected to announce that courts will be given new powers to stop activists attending demonstrations.

The stricter rules are likely to give wider stop and search powers to police allowing officers to inspect activists for “lock on” equipment used to prevent them from being moved.

Insulate Britain : M25 Protest in Pictures

Insulate Britain protests
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The campaign by Insulate Britain has been running for more than three weeks and has already led to more than 300 arrests.

Crime and Policing minister Kit Malthouse nevertheless said Insulate Britain protesters have been slipping through a “legal loophole” but police will be given greater powers to deal with them to ensure they face court action.

When asked on Sky News why High Court injunctions were not enough to bring an end to the protests, he said: “Most people will respond to an injunction, because an injunction is effectively a civil warning that if you fail to obey there will be consequences.

“To get to that consequences step, because it’s a civil procedure, we have to apply to the High Court, the injunction has to be served, a committal hearing has to be scheduled and those people have to have the chance to appear to defend themselves, and that all takes time.

“In the meantime, while the police can arrest these protesters, and charge them for obstructing the highway, the charge at the moment isn’t severe enough that they can be detained in custody pending an appearance in court.

“That means that these people in particular are then free to go repeat offend as we’ve seen.

“Eventually, given that they are as far as I can see in breach of that injunction, they will appear in front of a judge, and face the wrath of that judge, but in the meantime we need to think about this particular legal loophole to give police more power to deal with this very severe disruption.”

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