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Ex-Welsh Secretary calls for climate protesters who block roads to ‘lose driving licence’

29 Oct 2021 2 minute read
John Redwood MP by Richard Townshend (CC BY 3.0)

A former Welsh Secretary has called for climate protesters who block roads to lose their driving licence.

John Redwood, the Tory MP for Wokingham in Berkshire, claimed that the “protesters should welcome this” because it would “create less carbon dioxide”.

He argued that this would “force them to do as they preach” by travelling “by bike or public transport”.

Campaign group Insulate Britain have been holding demonstrations across the UK. Today several protesters have been arrested walking on to the M25 in a number of locations, in what is their 16th action on UK roads.

This has caused major disruption on London’s orbital motorway days before the start of the Cop26 climate summit.

On his blog, he said: “A friend this week suggested to me a punishment for deliberately blocking the highway as part of a protest which might better fit the crime and might be more of a deterrent to many of them.

“Why not make the penalty the loss of your driving licence? The crime would be deliberately blocking the road as a protest. The police and courts could remove as many licences as there were protesters with licences.

“The protesters should welcome this. As they want us all to create less carbon dioxide we would be enabling them to do just that themselves, by banning them from using personal transport in future.

“It would force them to do as they preach, going by bike or public transport. The ones who do make their own sacrifices already would not mind, whilst many of them who lecture the rest of us how to live but do not follow their own advice would face a disagreeable penalty that did inconvenience them.”

‘Eyes of the world’ 

Liam Norton, a spokesperson for the group, told the Guardian: “In a couple of days Cop26 will start in Glasgow and the eyes of the world will be on this country. Britain should be leading the world with radical plans to decarbonise our society.

“What we have instead is a budget that is yet another act of treason by this government upon its own people. It is a plan that facilitates mass murder. The citizens of this country should be in open revolt. We need change and we need it quickly.”


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Ed Jones
Ed Jones
2 years ago

Nain had dementia, she made more sense at her worst than he does at his best. Odd fellow.

GW Atkinson
GW Atkinson
2 years ago

Definitely illegal what he is proposing. It reeks of fascism.

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