How do you know when protest tactics are working? When governments ban them. The oppressive laws introduced by the previous government – the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 – are a tick list of effective political engagement. Everything from locking on and digging tunnels to actions on roads, at airports, oil refineries or newspapers, even marching down a street, has been criminalised. Why? Because these methods work. If they didn’t, the government wouldn’t have bothered.

The Conservatives justified their draconian measures with the claim that they prevented “disruption to the public”. But had they cared about disruption, they would have done all they could to prevent climate breakdown. Nothing is more disruptive than the flickering and eventual collapse of Earth systems. If you believe a few people sitting in the street is a major impediment to traffic, take a look at what a sea surge, a flash flood, a windstorm or a rail-buckling, road-melting, bridge-jamming heat event can do to transport infrastructure.

The government and prosecutors made great play of the inconvenience caused by the closure of the Dartford Crossing when protesters climbed on to it in 2022. The court imposed massive and cruel penalties. But the crossing is frequently closed by high winds, a problem expected to become much worse as a result of the issue the protesters were seeking to highlight. No government minister appears before the cameras at such moments, thundering about the diversion of ambulances, commuters and parents on the school run, and demanding that the chief executives of oil companies are locked........

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