To which the answer is, yes and no. And in this case, no. Direct or extra-parliamentary action has a long and honourable tradition. It has played a key part in the most important struggles of the past two centuries. Votes for women in Britain, civil rights for blacks in the USA, an end to apartheid in South Africa - none of these or many other causes could have been successful without the intervention of direct action.
Nobody supports direct action all of the time.
An organisation like Greenpeace, for example, is known worldwide for its involvement in militant protests. Yet when some lorry drivers and others took direct action against UK fuel prices last year, Greenpeace supporters picketed the pickets demanding that they go home. Let us make a distinction between types of direct action. There is direct action which becomes the focus for popular aspirations to change society for the better. For example, last week was the seventy-fifth anniversary of the British General Strike, when millions took action to defend living standards and working conditions.