CSM EDITORIAL
Climate Change activists have been disrupting London’s traffic for a third day. Wednesday’s protest saw them gluing themselves to a Docklands Light Railway train. Now – for some peculiar reason – a bunch of the activists have glued themselves to Jeremy Corbyn’s garden fence. Let’s hope the dogs of Islington do not have to change their peeing habits.
Highly unusually we find ourselves agreeing with Sadiq Khan when he said public transport helps in the fight against climate change. It seems a most ridiculous target for climate change activists. Here at Country Squire Magazine we are keen to allow people the right to peacefully protest but there are limits. This unending disruption activity by climate change activists is pushing the boundary of what is acceptable in a civilised society. People’s lives are being interfered with to an intolerable degree. As traffic jams proliferate fumes are clogging London and getting into the lungs of Londoners and little school children. How is this right?
It is simply not right that one group of people should be able to cause as much disruption to other people’s lives as these activists are doing. It is all very well to point out there is a right to peacefully protest but there is also a right to get on with your day without being interfered with by other people. Especially by idiots dancing like spice-addled fruitcakes on Waterloo Bridge.
These blinkered climate change activists think they are so right that anything they do is acceptable. They know that they are interfering with the lives of ordinary people but they make no apology about it because they feel their cause justifies it. They are extremists. They are resigned to being arrested. As one is arrested another one takes their place and so the disruption continues.
The problem is that their protest is as pointless as it is disruptive. For the only real answer to climate change is technology. It is only by technological solutions that we will be able to reverse whatever effect mankind has had upon the climate – if there’s been any effect at all. The technology we need can only come about through the efforts of capitalism. This is the very capitalism that the activists are against. It is a vicious circle in which they are perennial losers and rarely the friends of the earth at all. 300+ arrests so far. What a colossal waste of time and effort.
There will come a time when their protest is over. It can’t go on forever. At the point it finishes its impact finishes. The disruption ceases and people can get on with their activities, unmolested. The protest will have achieved absolutely nothing. There is no way that the Government is paying attention to the protesters at the moment. In any case it is too concerned with Brexit to be side-tracked by a protest. If the protesters were just left glued to whatever they are glued to, presumably they would eventually become unstuck.
The police have been incredibly tolerant of the activities of the protesters. It comes to something when the Met, who usually take the opportunity to kettle any group of protesters, leave the group to get on with it. The 300+ arrests leave the police on the back foot as they have not moved the protest on. It looks like the protesters are in control of what is happening rather than the police. It is not good for an ordered society that a small group of swampies can take over the agenda at a whim.
Sadiq Khan is worse than useless at helping with the situation. Unlike Boris and his water cannons, Khan prefers to stand at a distance ignoring the problem. So with the mayor and the police unwilling or unable to do anything positive to bring the protest to an end it carries on. It looks as if we are able to be held to ransom by any group willing to step far enough out of line. This is a real weakness in our political system.
The aims of the protesters are entirely vacuous. They want government to declare a climate change crisis. If mankind is having an effect on the climate it is not something that can be dealt with by the UK government declaring a crisis. It is virtue signalling of the highest order to be out in the streets demanding something so useless.
The time has come for the protesters to pack up and go home. They have made their point and the rest of us have lives to lead. It is time they recognised that there is a place for their activities but it is limited in time. The police should be doing more to remove the protesters from the streets. It is not right that a small group of activists should be able to call the shots in the way that they have. It is something that mayor should be on top of but isn’t. Time somebody did something to sort the situation out.