'We are hammering the last nail in the coffin of the fracking industry'

Direct action has spooked the government, shackled the shale gas companies and raised public awareness. Are protesters winning the fight against the frackers?

It was always a poisoned chalice, mediating between multinational fracking firms and the local communities dead set against the extreme form of energy extraction in their backyards. Nonetheless, it still shocked many when the government's "shale commissioner", the former Labour MP Natascha Engel, resigned at the end of last month after barely six months in the job.

The role was impossible, despaired Engel, who lost her seat in North East Derbyshire in 2017 after coming out in favour of fracking in the constituency. The government, she complained, was "choosing to listen to a powerful environmental lobby campaigning against fracking rather than allowing science and evidence to guide our policymaking".