By Ben Kerrigan-
British police have arrested 160 climate change protesters causing disruption across England.
The arrests were for a range of offences including breaching Public Order conditions, obstructing the highway, obstructing police and assault on an emergency worker.
Extinction Rebellion organised the action in London and Manchester to urge the government to prepare for a “climate crisis”.
Campaigners were arrested after obstructing traffic by sitting in the middle of the streets. Several activists had to be cleared from the road where they had been lying down in an attempt to block Mr Johnson’s route to Prime Minister’s Questions this morning.
Extinction Rebellion has promised to stage 10 days of protests, its objectives being to get MPs to back the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill.
Other planned events in the capital include a “carnival of corruption”, which is due to take place outside the Treasury, and a “walk of shame” near the Bank of England.
The Metropolitan Police had instructed Tuesday and Wednesday’s gathering to only take place off the main roads at Parliament Square Gardens between 08:00 BST and 19:00. Boats, vehicles, trailers or other structures were banned from the procession.
Elderly woman is removed from protests
Footage posted online by Extinction Rebellion appeared to show regular protestor, John Lynes- a demonstrator in his 90s- being led away by police near Parliament Square while walking with a stick.
Mr Lynes, from St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex, has joined previous protests organised by the group.
Violation Of Orders
Crowds cheered those arrested by police for stubbornly violating police orders to move. Outside the Home Office, two XR protesters hastily unloaded a large piece of tree trunk from a flatbed lorry and glued their hands together through a hollowed-out section in the middle.
They were joined by scores of protesters moments later, some pouring a red liquid to symbolise blood, and blocking the entire road.
XR spokesperson Tamsin Omand, 35, from London, said that protesters wanted the Prime Minister to see and hear their action.
Mx Omand said: ‘The climate and ecological emergency has to be the absolute priority – how we are going to transform society into one that is fit for the crises we are already experiencing and the ones coming down the road.
‘We are seeing a Parliament that has failed on every count – Boris Johnson wasn’t even around for the first Cobras (of the coronavirus pandemic), so if that is the attitude he is going to take to the climate and ecological emergency we are in dire straits.
‘Disruption is a core tenet of how XR works and how we have managed to achieve so much in a short period of time.
‘We have been outside Downing Street blocking his route on both sides and of course he’s encountering us here in the square – I think we are impossible to ignore.’
They added: ‘Our message to Boris Johnson is that he’s really the last Prime Minister who can do something, that can take the action required to set us on a new course. He’s got a new son – he needs to think what the world will look like in 20 years.’
Extinction Rebellion protesters pose as corpses during a protest in Parliament Square this morning as the group continued its two weeks of action.