JUST STOP OIL activists smashed a glass cabinet containing the Magna Carta today before gluing themselves to its enclosure, holding a sign which read “The government is breaking the law.”

The activists are demanding the British government commit to an emergency plan to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030.

Reverend Dr Sue Parfitt, 82, an active Anglican priest from Bristol, and Judy Bruce, 85, a retired biology teacher from Swansea, entered the British Library and broke the glass enclosure that surrounds the Great Charter — a foundation document for parliamentary powers.

The pair could be heard saying:“The government has been found guilty of breaking its own climate laws! What do we value more? The lives of our children? Or new oil licences? It’s time to choose!”

Rev Parfitt said: “The Magna Carta is rightly revered, being of great importance to our history, to our freedoms and to our laws.

“But there will be no freedom, no lawfulness, no rights, if we allow climate breakdown to become the catastrophe that is now threatened.”