Just Stop Oil demo blocks Park Lane
ECO-PROTESTERS sprayed paint over a luxury car showroom and blocked London’s prestigious Park Lane yesterday.
The campaigners, who are calling on the Government to halt all new oil and gas licences, set up the roadblock from 11am.
Just Stop Oil demonstrators sat down in the road, holding large orange banners, with a number gluing themselves to the tarmac or locking themselves together.
One protester sprayed orange paint over the Aston Martin showroom. But the actions enraged others, one snatching and tearing up a protest banner outside the car dealer.
Chloe Thomas, 19, a pregnant mother from Cannock, Staffs, tried to justify the action, saying: “How do I explain to my daughter in the years to come where the animals went, where the culture went, where the beauty went, why there are no bees and why I can’t put food in her tummy?”
Patrick McCarthy, 67, a carer from Telford, Shropshire, who was also at the protest, said: “It is uncomfortable, sometimes frightening and financially draining, so why do it? Because we have seen the devastating truth about the existential threats we face and cannot ‘unsee’ that.”
He added: “The real question is why millions aren’t in civil resistance rather than why I am.”
The action comes just days after Just Stop Oil protesters threw tins of tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting in the National Gallery and sprayed paint over the rotating New Scotland Yard sign.
The campaign group said it will also be protesting outside Downing Street every day this month.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has unveiled plans for a major crackdown on disruptive protests carried out by environmental groups.
She says the new Public Order Bill will stop demonstrators holding the public “to ransom”.
Ministers will be empowered to block protests causing “serious disruption”. Activists say they will not be intimidated by law changes aimed at “silencing non-violent people”.
More than 350 Just Stop Oil protesters have been arrested in London since the start of October, according to Home Office figures.
It described one demo which blocked emergency fire crews at a junction as “indefensible”.