The hi-vis jackets, banners and pumping adrenaline that fuelled their attention-grabbing actions have gone. Instead the climate activists of Insulate Britain are filing into English courtrooms day after day, taking part in what some have likened to a cat and mouse game in which the stakes – personal, financial and emotional – are high.
Their mass-arrest actions, which brought serious disruption to rush hour traffic on the M25 and around the south-east, are playing out their end stages in a criminal justice system beset by delays for most cases, but surprisingly efficient at putting non-violent demonstrators in front of magistrates and judges.
