Police should be able to deploy water cannon against Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters, says a majority of the public, as one of its leaders backed industrial “sabotage” to take down civilisation.

A poll for the radio station LBC found 58 per cent said officers should be able to use water cannon to deal with XR protestors as well as tasers, riot police, tear gas and plastic bullets.

It came as a video emerged showing XR co-founder Simon Bramwell telling a campaign meeting that activists should “en masse” shut down fossil fuel industries.

“Along with doing things like shutting down fossil fuel industries, direct sabotage, mass civil disobedience, we must also transform the myths that have got us here, the myths that we are in fact civilised,” he told an event organised by Deep Green Resistance UK last November.

“We are facing the hardest of times at the moment, our civilisation is displaying every sign of collapse and because we have become so separated from nature, as that collapse occurs that pent up animal in us is going to be released in utter savagery,

“It is part of our duty, in my opinion, that we have also got to not only take down civilisation but shepherd ourselves and the incoming generations back into a state of wilding into like a feral

consciousness.”

Protests by Extinction Rebellion cost the Metropolitan Police £40 million last year, more than double the £15 million it spent on its violent crime taskforce, which tries to reduce the number of stabbings and other violent crime.

Cressida Dick, the Met Police Commissioner, said it had placed “horrendous strain” on London, with officers using arrests under public order laws and restrictions on the locations for law protest to police it.

The Deltapoll survey, however, showed the public wanted police to go further. It found 63 per cent backed the use of riot police against XR,with just 23 per cent opposed, 44 per cent supported tear gas versus 42 per cent against and 57 per cent backed tasers versus 30 per cent who disagreed.

More than half (53 per cent) also said there should be restrictions on people being able to return to protests if they have previously been arrested, a key plank of LBC’s “enough is enough” campaign launched today (Monday).

Yesterday (Sunday) XR announced its next UK rebellion would be on May 23. “Expect something bolder, more creative and more innovative than ever before,” it said.