A millionaire senior Conservative environmental adviser is facing calls to quit after he said that he stood “with Extinction Rebellion” over its protests at oil refineries.

Ben Goldsmith, a board member at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, criticised Labour for its call for “injunctions” to stop Extinction Rebellion’s disruption, saying it was “not a good look”.

He then added: “The protesters are right to be doing whatever it takes to wake people up. The fossil fuel industry is grubby and dangerous.

“We need to unhook ourselves from our dependence asap. I’m with Extinction Rebellion.”

‘Utterly out of touch’

Mr Goldsmith, a millionaire financier, is also chairman of the Conservative Environment Network and is the brother of Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, an environment minister.

The Goldsmiths are close friends of Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, who stayed at a luxury villa in Marbella owned by the Goldsmith family last October.

But Tory MP members of the Conservative Environment Network reacted with fury to Mr Goldsmith’s tweet, with one quitting its WhatsApp group.

One member, from the 2019 intake of Conservative MPs, said: “It’s a disgrace and shows how utterly out-of-touch these privileged idiots are.

“Boris needs to take on these eco-fascists immediately and he can start by sacking Goldsmith.”

Chris Loder, West Dorset MP, said: “Ben Goldsmith is inappropriately interfering in political matters when he is a Defra director. He should either resign and stand for election or be sacked by George Eustice.”

Two hours after the post, Mr Goldsmith deleted it, later clarifying that it had been posted “in a personal capacity”.

He said on Twitter: