Joining the protest with Just Stop Oil, activist Jane Towil described the Tories’ decision to grant new oil and gas licences as “nothing short of genocide.”

“It’s just corporate greed and capitalism gone mad, it doesn’t make any kind of economic or moral sense whatsoever,” she said.

“I’m outraged and morally compelled to be in civil resistance against our criminal government.”

She urged delegates to have a conscience and think about their children instead of being motivated by short-term greed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gwyneth Farleigh, an activist for Extinction Rebellion, said: “We’re here to tell the Tories to tell Rishi Sunak not to drill for oil and gas.

“We’re already at 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial levels of warming and look at the devastation around the world.

“Sunak’s government seems to just want to maximise profit for the sake of the economy over the safety of all our futures.

“The world can’t afford new gas and oil, we’ve run out of time already.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jorge Walsh, campaigner with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), said: “I’m here today because the government are proposing to spend £205 billion on updating the Trident nuclear weapons system.

“That is money that could be much better spent on wages, on healthcare, on all of the public services.

“During a cost-of-living crisis, I think to spend any money, let alone such an astronomical amount, on nuclear weapons just seems like such a depressing waste really.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nigel Catling from the campaign group Republic said he was on the protest to raise awareness of the need for a new democracy in Britain, the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, and for an elected head of state.

“The monarchy and the House of Lords both have to go,” he said.