Climate activists glue themselves to buildings
● Protesters camp out overnight to maintain London stronghold
Extinction Rebellion protesters have glued themselves to buildings after being warned they face arrest on the second day of their international action.
Climate change activists camped overnight to maintain their stronghold on parts of central London, telling police they were prepared to be taken into custody for failing to comply with orders to move their protest to a single site at Trafalgar Square.
Police handed out notices across Westminster yesterday, where campaigners kept an overnight vigil, in an attempt to reduce the disruption in the capital and concentrate the action on one area.
However, protesters glued themselves to the Department for Transport building and to the underside of a lorry outside the Home Office in defiance of the notices.
In a statement yesterday afternoon, the Met said any group wishing to continue with their Extinction Rebellion protest “must” go to Trafalgar Square, adding: “The Met believes that this action is necessary in order to prevent the demonstrations from causing serious disruption to the community.
“Anyone who fails to comply with the condition is liable to arrest and prosecution.”
Police said they arrested 152 people yesterday.
They arrested 319 people on Monday, well over the 122 arrests made on the first day of similar protests last April.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has described the activists as “unco-operative crusties”.
Claudia Fisher, 57, from Brighton, said: “We are a little bit crusty, I’ll put my hands up to it, after a night sleeping out on the grounds of Whitehall, but we’re not unco-operative. We’re actually very co-operative.
“We don’t take offence, we don’t have blame, we don’t go around calling people names, that’s not the way we do things.”
Former Metropolitan Police detective sergeant John Curran, 49, who camped overnight at the protests, said he was willing to be arrested again after being detained by officers during the first round of action in April.
Mr Curran, who is father to a three-year-old daughter and now makes guitars for a living in Oxford, said: “I am willing to be arrested again unless some changes happen.
“Clearly there is some frustration [for the police] that they probably have better things to be doing, and I agree, but the responsibility for that must lie with the government. Take action and we won’t have to be here.”
He added: “I’m not going to stoop to his [Mr Johnson’s] level of name-calling. Take action: that’s the only demand that I have.”