AS Greenpeace commandos threw down a waterlogged gauntlet to four nations yesterday, the councillor for Britain's most exotic ward angrily urged them to abandon their position.

Although both the Foreign and Scottish offices were relaxed about the seizure of the Rockall islet 289 mile's west of the Scottish mainland, the local representative of British democracy was distirictly unamused.

"It does not do their cause any good," complained Norman MacDonald.

The two men and one woman scrambled on to the 65ft stump of rock just before 10pm on Tuesday night. Encased in a solar-powered survival capsule, they intend to use Rockall as a base to monitor, and possibly disrupt, oil exploration in the region.

Greenpeace maintains that the British government broke European environmental law when it granted exploration licences covering 20,000 square miles of the north-east Atlantic. It also argues that Denmark, Iceland and Ireland, who also lay claim to Rockall's continental shelf, should not attempt to increase the world's store of fossil fuel.

"We cannot afford to burn a quarter of the world's remaining oil reserves, so there is no point in searching for more," said a Greenpeace spokeswoman in London.

This did not go down well in the Western Isles. As activists Al, Eric and Meike munched muesli, pasta and beef granules in their 12ft by 6ft plastic igloo, Mr MacDonald accused them of forgetting the importance of fossil fuel to the Hebridean economy.

"Oil will create employment here. We have been having a bad time lately and any development in the Atlantic will be welcomed."