Stop standing around the edges and clear the streets, police urged
MINISTERS called upon Scotland Yard to clear the streets of protests today as disruption caused chaos in the capital for a second day.
More than 320 people were arrested in the first 24 hours of the mass Extinction Rebellion demo, which has seen climate change activists block streets and bridges across central London.
About 200 more, who camped on streets around Westminster, face arrest unless they comply with legal notices ordering them to move to a designated protest zone at Trafalgar Square.
There were targeted protests at Smithfield Market in Farringdon overnight, while activists wearing white boiler suits glued themselves to the glass doors of the Department for Transport building in Horseferry Road.
Further traffic disruption and road closures were expected as a predicted 30,000 demonstrators prepared to shut down 11 “key” sites such as Parliament Street, Great Smith Street and Westminster and Lambeth bridges.
Hundreds of police officers, including specialist protest teams drafted in from across the country are on standby across the city centre.
Observers say Scotland Yard has adopted a visibly more robust response following criticism of its “stand-off” policing of protests which paralysed the capital for several days in April. The Met said it had arrested 319 people yesterday, easily surpassing the 122 arrests made on the first day of similar protests in the capital in April.
But th morning,
is Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, said police should be more “pro-active” instead of “standing around the edges” while tents are erected to block roads.
He told LBC: “It cannot be right that people are able to set up tents in the middle of the street and then not simply be removed.
“If you parked your car in the middle of the street, it would be removed and you would be fined. If you refused to move it you would be up in court.
“We cannot have a situation where there are separate sets of rules. Walking in here I can see entire roads blocked with tents set up and the police standing around the edges. I do think that the police need to be perhaps a little bit more pro-active and lean into this.”
Boris Johnson last night expressed sympathy for the protesters’ cause but said he “deplores” their tactics, describing the activists as “uncooperative crusties” and calling on them to abandon their “hemp-smelling bivouacs”.
More than 100 activists descended on the world-famous Smithfield Market early today, setting up vegetable stalls to “disrupt the idea that Smithfield must always be a place of death and environmental destruction.”
Meat trader Lani Radani, 39, said his takings were down by at least a half, adding: “I believe people have a right to protest and make different choices but I don’t think they should have been allowed to set up camp outside the market. Customers were just not showing up.”
At least 100 tents have been set up along Marsham Street, Westminster, outside the Home Office and close to many Government departments. Section 14 legal notices ordering them to move were handed out by police at 7.30am today. Those who do not comply with the order and move their belongings will be arrested.
Activist Mike Gumn, 33, an NHS manager from Bristol, said: “I want to make a statement that [the activists] are all different sorts of people from all different walks of life, not just people you would call hippies.”
On the prospect of being arrested, he said: “I would not like to get arrested, but if that happens when I am exercising my right to protest and deliver a good life for my children, then I will take it on the chin.”