Just Stop Oil has right to protest outside MPs homes insists Chris Packham
Chris Packham has said Just Stop Oil has a right to protest outside the homes of MPs.
The BBC presenter said that the right of protesters to target the homes of MPs should be “preserved.”
The conservationist, 62, made the comments as there is concern over the safety of politicians amid protest.
Carol services were held outside the home of Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer last Christmas and in November 2023, 18 people gathered at the Kensington property of Rishi Sunak holding placards and beating pots and pans.
Speaking to Times Radio, Packham said: “I think that we need a portfolio of protests, basically, because we need a radical flank and Just Stop Oil are seen by many as that radical flank.
“They are the people who in some people’s minds go a step too far. And that might be, you know, standing outside an MP’s house.
“But the fact is that they are motivated, as I am by a manifest fear for the health of our future. And that is on a foundation of understanding of very good science. We listen to the science. The science tells us we have to act.”
A Just Stop Oil source previously said that targeting MPs at home was “not off the cards by any means” but reaffirmed the group’s commitment to non-violence.
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Packham added: “We in the UK, for all of the laws that have been radically changed in the very recent times, have to preserve that right to protest What Just Stop Oil want is on their T-shirt.
“They want a rapid just transition away from fossil fuels to a healthy renewable energy system. And they need to get that message across and they are desperate to do so. So I would support a breadth of protest.
“That doesn’t mean that you and I need to go and stand outside MPs houses. I’m taking a legal approach, a perfectly democratic one, which is available to me as a citizen of the UK. But yes, we’re on the same sheet.”
On Wednesday, Rishi Sunak urged police to do more to stop disruptive protests, saying: “The nation’s democratic institutions needed better protection from “intimidation, disruption [and] subversion.”
An anti-Israel protest took place outside the Dorset house of the Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood.
He said: “We cannot allow democratically elected representatives of any party to be targeted by these mindless thugs, and we expect the police to be extremely robust in dealing with it.”