Just Stop Oil protesters blocking road to Buckingham Palace glue themselves to The Mall
Specialist officers used debonding liquid in plastic syringes to unglue campaigners
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Your support makes all the difference.Police have removed and arrested 25 Just Stop Oil protesters who had glued themselves to the road of The Mall outside of Buckingham Palace.
Specialist officers used debonding liquid in plastic syringes to free the protesters who had glued themselves to the ground or to each other.
The liquid was squirted into the activists’ hands, which allowed the police to separate them before they searched and detained the campaigners.
The activists started sitting in the road at 8.45am on Monday wearing orange hi-vis jackets and holding Just Stop Oil banners, blocking traffic in both directions – with some of them glued together or to the Tarmac.
The disruption lasted for two hours and 15 minutes, with it taking police more than an hour to make an arrest.
At least 40 police officers and 10 police vehicles were sent to the scene.
By 11.05am, the last of the protesters had been removed from the road and taken away in police vans. Officers at the scene said they had all been arrested.
The protesters, who travelled from Scotland, said they felt the need to act after the UK government gave its backing in September to an expansion of oil and gas operations in the North Sea.
The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) is expected to undertake a new round of oil and gas licensing this month.
Emma Brown, 31, one of the protesters arrested, said that the activists “would walk 500 miles” to “just stop oil”.
She said: “We’ve come down because the government is pressing ahead with over 100 new fossil fuel licences.
“And that is literally a death sentence for all of us here and for all of you.
“So we can’t allow this to continue. We have to have a cut-off somewhere. We’ve seen the effects already on our doorstep. We’re seeing the effects all over the globe. And this madness has to stop.”
Before the arrests began, police officers and special liaison officers were talking to the protesters.
One police officer asked: “How long are you going to be here?” A protester replied: “Until we get a new government.”
“The idea is to continue this until our demand is bet. We are going to be here every day for the rest of October,” Alex De Koning, 24, told The Independent.
“This is what is needed to make change. We cannot take this any more. This is how history happens.”
On seeing the police arrest his fellow campaigners, he said: “It’s a really sad thing to see the police carting away my friends like this. They don’t want to get arrested, I don’t want to get arrested.
“But unfortunately we’re in such a dire situation right now. 40C in London, wildfires in France being put out with liquid manure because they ran out of water, 27C in the North Pole – so hot you can take your jumper off in the North Pole. It’s terrifying.”
The protesters were still sitting on the road when the Changing of the Guard procession marched through The Mall.
While one taxi driver shouted profanities, telling the group to “get a real job”, another Scottish man on a bike shouted words of support. He said: “Go on the protesters, you’re doing great work. Stay strong.”
Just Stop Oil has said protesters would be campaigning every day outside of Downing Street for the whole of October.
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