Questions over security after activists storm the Commons
SECURITY at Parliament is under review as Extinction Rebellion activists superglued themselves around the Speaker’s chair in the Commons.
Five protesters posed as tourists on a visit to the Palace of Westminster before launching a protest inside the Commons chamber and revealing banners calling for a “citizen’s assembly” to act on climate matters.
Others unfurled a banner from scaffolding, attached themselves to Carriage Gates on Parliament Square by their necks with bicycle locks, and glued themselves to the pavement.
Police took two and a half hours to remove the protesters, arresting eight people in the process.
‘Those who break the law in the name of a supposed protest should expect to feel the full force of the law’
The incident raised fresh concerns about security in the Commons, just months after a man broke into the parliamentary estate by climbing over a fence last December.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, condemned the incident and confirmed police and parliamentary security are conducting a joint investigation into the incident.
“It is a real shame that those visitors who made arrangements to join tours of the Palace of Westminster today had their visit disrupted and cancelled,” he said.
“Despite the disruption, democratic tours will take place tomorrow.”
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, described the activists as a “mob” of “publicity-hungry lawbreakers”.
“We live in a vibrant parliamentary democracy where all enjoy the right to lawful, peaceful protest,” she said.
“However, the public are getting increasingly incensed by the attentionseeking antics of a small band of publicity-hungry law-breakers intent on causing disruption for the rest of us.
“This country has a proud tradition of valuing the rule of law, not the rule of the mob.
“And those who trespass or break the law in the name of a supposed protest should expect to feel the full force of the law.”
Extinction Rebellion, which has also been responsible for transport chaos in London and a blockade of newspaper printing presses, posted a photo on Twitter showing three members handin-hand in front of the chair, with two other members holding up signs.
The protesters delivered a speech calling for an “assembly” of voters to override the Government.
Joe Short, an activist from Bristol who locked himself to the gates, said the assembly was an “alternative form of democracy which could be much more effective at dealing with problems like climate change”.
Another activist from Northamptonshire, who gave his name as Al, said demonstrators had smuggled banners into the Commons chamber in a “bag within a bag”.
He said: “The action today was to form a circle around the Speaker’s chair.
People glued themselves around the Speaker’s chair.
“They didn’t damage the Speaker’s chair in any way, and they glued themselves to each other.”
The current Speaker’s chair was given to Parliament by the nation of Australia and is made of black beanwood from North Queensland.
The original version, designed by Pugin for the Palace in around 1849, was destroyed when the building was bombed in 1941.
The Houses of Commons and the Lords are in recess until Monday.