Home Office minister gives green light to tackle eco-mob to ‘protect’ events

Senior Home Office minister Chris Philp has given Brits the go-ahead to personally intervene on left-wing climate protestors interrupting public events. Mr Philp told Times Radio that it’s ‘reasonable’ for people to act against protestors if they are at an event disrupted by Just Stop Oil. Following yesterday’s protests by the group at Wimbledon, Westminster and Harrods, the policing minister said their direct action is ‘not legitimate’, but championed the ‘clamping down’ on their activity thanks to new laws introduced by the Government. He said: ‘I think it’s reasonable for people to try and protect the event they’re watching.’ However added: ‘Obviously, nobody should do anything dangerous or hurt anyone.’ Just Stop Oil brought Wimbledon to a standstill yesterday (Image: Getty) Mr Philp warned sporting organisations like Wimbledon that they will need to ‘increase the number of marshals and stewards’ to prevent future protests, adding: ‘They have to be more careful about checking people coming into sporting events.’ He was asked whether, were at an event and witnessed a Just Stop Oil event, he’d be willing to ‘do a Bairstow’, Mr Philp said he would. He said: ‘Yeah, I think… it’s reasonable for people to try and protect the event they’re watching.’ Mr Philp said the groups’ protests are ‘deliberate disruption trying to ruin other people’s lives’, but said major progress had been made with policing. He said: ‘Well, we’ve made a lot of progress in clamping down on their disruptive activity. ‘If you think back to the autumn, they were blocking roads in London for extended periods of time, they were blocking the M 25, calling causing 10-mile tailbacks since then we’ve changed the law through the Public Order Act 2023 that recently came into force, and the police are now being much more robust in the way they act. ‘So we’re now not seeing those M25 blockages on the streets of London, the blockages they cause are being cleared within a matter of a few minutes.’ Chris Philp gave the public the go-ahead to intervene (Image: Getty) Yesterday morning a small group of Just Stop Oil protestors brought Parliament Square in Westminster to a standstill when taking to the road with banners. Police managed to get them off the road, and the traffic moving again, in just a couple of minutes however. He praised Wimbledon’s security for getting the protestors off the pitch quickly, noting the pair who threw orange confetti over the court were charged with aggravated trespass. Mr Philp said he was ‘a bit surprised’ about the protestors’ use of a Wimbledon jigsaw to smuggle the confetti into the event, noting tennis security had been searching for ‘orange powder’. He said the Home Office is encouraging sports organisations to use injunctions, because ‘that allows for a much more severe criminal penalty’. He said: “If the injunction gets breached, and sporting organisers, it’s open to them to seek those injunctions. And some of them have done that.’