Police have issued their strongest warning yet to Extinction Rebellion activists, saying they could face life in jail ahead of a potential drone protest at Heathrow Airport next week.
www.standard.co.uk
This is serious stuff indeed. I don't know exactly what they are planning but an attempt to close down Heathrow for 10 days (rather as we saw at Gatwick just before Christmas) by flying drones around to prevent aircraft from approaching or leaving looks to me horribly like terrorism, as defined by our
Terrorism Act 2000, since they are trying to influence government by methods that endanger the lives of third parties and pose "a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public", and I cannot see how they can be allowed to shut down one of the world's busiest airports and the main European hub for transatlantic flights, no matter how justified or urgent the cause.
Their disrupting traffic in central London for several days a few weeks ago was highly annoying and disruptive, but the police seemed to me to keep their policing as low-level as possible, and the campaigners enjoyed considerable public support (though this may in part have been personal support for the remarkable young woman who inspired the protests, Greta Thunberg, who came over here to join them at the time).
I fear they are at grave risk of committing very serious offences that will inevitably lead to life-changing penalties, including very lengthy prison sentences, and losing a great deal of public support at the same time, and I do hope they reconsider.