DARTFORD’S LOCAL MP has won a national award for his campaign against the use of catapults to maim and kill British wildlife.

The Labour MP led a delegation of colleagues into meetings with TikTok in April. The platform agreed to take down all posts advertising catapults for sale and has since deleted more than 300 accounts linked to catapult sales or wildlife abuse.

The issue has been raised repeatedly by residents in Dartford and by animal welfare groups across Kent, where swans and other protected birds have been targeted.

Dickson is now pressing the Home Office to classify catapults as offensive weapons, which would restrict their sale and make carrying one in public without good reason an offence. He has also secured a ministerial roundtable with animal welfare charities, the NFU and police forces.

The awards, now in their fourth year, are run by the environmental campaign Nature 2030 and Environmental PR & Public Affairs Agency, Higginson Strategy, with pet insurer Animal Friends and philanthropist Peter Hall as headline sponsors. Tuesday’s ceremony in the House of Commons was hosted by Ruth Jones MP.

Emma Slawinski, Chief Executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, who presented the award, said:

“Catapults were written off as a nuisance for years while the animals on the receiving end had nobody speaking for them in Parliament.

“That changed because one backbencher refused to let it drop. Getting a global platform to move takes nerve. The Home Office should now finish the job.”

 John Higginson, Founder and Chief Executive of Higginson Strategy, said:

“It is an honour to recognise Jim’s work on this. He has taken an issue too often dismissed as a nuisance and turned it into real action from a global platform, and Britain’s wildlife is better protected as a result.”

Author Hannah Bourne-Taylor took the night’s headline award, named Campaigner of the Year after letting a bird nest in her hair for 84 days as part of her campaign for swift bricks in new homes.

Other winners included Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard, who took Thames Water to court, and Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Jane Dodds MS for the greyhound racing ban in Wales.