Civil liberties in Britain are being removed by order of the government Tony Benn MP

Five smaller camps around other gates were also cleared.

Though it has gained a worldwide following since it began some local people welcomed the apparent end of the peace camp.

"We've had to put up with these malingerers and vagrants for two and a half years and quite frankly most of us are sick to the back teeth of it," said one man who lives nearby.

But Labour MP Tony Benn who later visited the women said their eviction was another example of the erosion of civil liberties.

"What is happening now is that civil liberties in Britain are being removed by order of the government," he said.

The women's peace camp was set up in September 1981 after 36 women marched from their South Wales homes to the Berkshire airbase in protest at plans to store Cruise missiles there.

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