Extinction Rebellion are dangerous extremists whose criminal activists should be put behind bars.

So says Richard Walton — and he should know: Walton was formerly head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter-Terrorism Command and now works as an independent consultant on solutions for countering terrorism and extremism. He is also co-author of the first in-depth investigation of Extinction Rebellion, published by the think tank Policy Exchange.

The must-read report is a timely counter to the narrative prevalent across the mainstream media that, while Extinction Rebellion’s protests can be a bit disruptive and inconvenient, the group is essentially on the side of the angels because its people are decent and committed and prepared to sacrifice their careers and liberty in order to save the planet.

Walton’s report, co-written with Tom Wilson, stresses that Extinction Rebellion deserve no such sympathy.

Extinction Rebellion, the authors report, is a hard-left “extremist” organisation with anti-Semitic associations which costs Britain many millions in policing and economic damage, which is explicitly anti-democratic and whose proposed policies — if ever implemented — would result in a massive reduction in living standards.

They write:

“Those encountering Extinction Rebellion should be under no illusions about just how destabilising and extremist their agenda is. Not only is it unclear how their three formal demands could realistically be satisfied, but also it appears unlikely that their actions would end even if government committed to trying to implement them. The words of Extinction Rebellion’s founders and its posts on social media make clear that the objective is system change. This means bringing down our existing democratic system—which several of the campaign’s leading figures hold in contempt—and causing rapid economic disaster for the country. The proponents of this course of action have no serious explanations for how the country would function if their demands were implemented.”

Yes. Extinction Rebellion have exactly those eco-fascist tendencies I described in my book Watermelons They are green on the outside, red on the inside. And as I found when researching my book, this anti-freedom, anti-prosperity, anti-human tendency is not a bug of the environmental movement but its most salient feature.

Those still unaware of this fact haven’t been paying attention. Environmentalists can be refreshingly frank about what their real motives are.

Only last week, for example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff admitted that the Democrats’ proposed Green New Deal had really very little to do with saving the planet.

As Saikat Chakrabarti, AOC’s chief of staff, told the Washington Post:

“[The Green New Deal] wasn’t originally a climate thing at all…we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

This morning on BBC Radio 4, Extinction Rebellion’s Rupert Read – a former Green Party spokesman – effectively confirmed that what Extinction Rebellion are really aim to achieve is a permanent economic recession.

“You want there to be a permanent state of recession in this country, that is your position is it… you want a recession, that’s what you’re arguing for is it?” “… the alternatives are this, on the one hand business as usual and climate breakdown and mass death, on the other hand we reassess.”

As Guido Fawkes commented:

Guido can’t wait to see the same people up in arms over a dodgy treasury prediction of a slight fall in the rate of growth of GDP in the event of a No Deal Brexit hit out at Extinction Rebellion for disregarding the concept of growth altogether.

Well indeed. This fact that Extinction Rebellion are committed to making us permanently poorer ought to be a major PR problem for their cause. Yet amazingly, neither they nor any other green activist bodies have been properly held to account for their immiserating tendencies. Partly, it’s that the media hasn’t been doing its homework. Partly, it’s that everyone seems to be so busy being dazzled by the distractions – fresh-faced teenage girl in pig-tails who can literally see carbon; whispery-voiced, gorilla-hugging Malthusians all quavery and earnest on beautifully shot nature documentaries; endless shots on the BBC and CNN of calving glaciers and lost polar bears — that emotion overwhelms all rational analysis.

This is very much in line with Extinction Rebellion’s brainwashing tactics. A bit like the videos of alleged Western atrocities against Muslims played on Islamic State recruitment sites, the group recruits by bypassing the intellects and appealing straight to the emotions of the impressionable and gullible.

Here is Extinction Rebellion’s co-founder Gail Bradbrook in action:

During her talk at the Cog X conference in London, Bradbrook also made her warning particularly stark and encouraged a strong emotional engagement from her audience. Early on in her presentation, Bradbrook used a picture in her slides of the body of the Syrian child Alan Kurdi, who had drowned in 2015 when a boat sank as his family attempted to travel from Turkey to Greece. As she presented this image, Bradbrook stated that there are 400,000 deaths annually—with the implication being that these are being caused by climate change. Towards the end of her talk, Bradbrook put it to her listeners: “So what does it mean to look at this truth? For me it meant a feeling of a dark night of the soul over many weeks of grief. I expect to die, I expect that my children will die; but that all life on earth will die? How are we to live in these times? How are we to stand up and talk about business opportunities and business as usual? We have to tell each other the truth. In the way we say in Extinction Rebellion; we are fucked, we are fucked! Humanity is Fucked!”

(Gail Bradbrook, one suspects, is the proud owner of many, many cats.)

But the scariest part of the Policy Exchange report hasn’t had nearly the attention it deserves. Read this paragraph and weep:

“Potentially more politically significant than the activists meeting with ministers, was a claim made by Gail Bradbrook on Sky News during the April protests in London. While standing amidst demonstrators on Waterloo Bridge, Bradbrook told the presenter that “politicians behind the scenes, including this current government, are telling us that they need a social movement like ours to give them the social permission to do the necessary.”The presenter questioned whether it could really be the case that government ministers could be telling the activists that this is what they wanted. Bradbrook responded by saying, “I’m giving you anecdotal evidence; I won’t be able to prove that to you, but I’ve met a couple of people who talked to Theresa May’s advisers and they have said they do know how bad it is and actually they do need you guys to help.” Without further clarification it is impossible to know precisely what Gail Bradbrook was referring to.”

No, but I think we can guess. From Claire Perry (Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth: yes, such a department actually exists!) to Greg Clark (Secretary of State for Business), not to mention Environment Secretary Michael Gove, the Conservative Party has been assimilated at the highest level by Green Body Snatchers, pushing an environmental agenda so inimical to conservatism that for years now we might just as well have given the keys to Number 10 to Jeremy Corbyn — or Caroline Lucas or Nick Clegg.

The environmental movement — especially in its most dangerously weaponised form in groups like Extinction Rebellion — is anti-science, irrational, non-evidence-based, anti-prosperity, anti-growth, anti-human, anti-democratic. (And that’s before we even get on to the topic of all the damage it does to nature in the form of biofuel plantations, bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes, and such like).

Some of its intentions may be good-ish. But the measures it proposes to inflict on us — for own good, allegedly — are probably evil and certainly ought to be anathema to anyone with a conservative bone in their body or a brain cell in their head.

It’s good that Policy Exchange — a think tank co-founded, ironically enough, by Michael Gove — should have got the measure of these sinister, dangerous extremists.

I just hope and pray that incoming Conservative leader Boris Johnson and the rest of his administration get the memo. But I’m not holding my breath.