Eco-warriors brought Central London to a standstill on Monday morning, with radicals glueing themselves to the roads around Southwark Bridge and Canary Warf to protest climate change.
Members of Insulate Britain, an Extinction Rebellion splinter group, have once again enraged the public, shutting down traffic in a busy area of the British capital.
At around 8 a.m. during Monday morning rush hour the far-left radicals began blockading roads from Upper Thames Street to Bishopsgate in the Liverpool Street area of London, resulting in at least 51 arrests, the Daily Mail reported.
A City of London Police spokesman said: “Bishopsgate is currently closed at the junction with Wormwood Street due to protest activity. Police are at the scene but please avoid the area if possible as this is causing disruption to traffic.
“Police are also at Southwark Bridge at the junction with Upper Thames Street, which is also closed in both directions, due to protest activity. Please avoid the area if possible.”
Footage shared on social media showed police officers trying to remove them from the scene, however many had glued parts of their bodies to the road in order to prevent swift action from being taken.
The group, which demands that the government fund insulation for state housing by 2025 and “decarbonise” the economy, had mostly focused on shutting down highways prior to Monday morning’s action, which may be seen as an escalation ahead of the upcoming COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland next week.
Over the past few weeks, Insulate Britain has staged motorway protests across the country in an attempt to blackmail the government into succumbing to its climate change demands.
The tactics of the group have not won many admirers among the public, with drivers being seen forcefully confronting the group on multiple occasions.
On Monday, several drivers attempted to clear the protesters by slowly driving their vehicles at the blockade, but police officers were seen defending the so-called protesters by stopping these efforts.
Mohammed, a taxi driver who was stuck behind the eco-blockade, told LBC that it is a “nightmare” for him and other workers just trying to earn a living.
“You can’t argue with them, you can’t fight them. The worst thing is they are destroying people’s lives, they don’t care about anyone else,” he lamented.
The taxi driver also complained about the slow response from the police, claiming it took them “thirty-five minutes to show up,” adding: “they could move a bit faster.
“I don’t blame the officers, it’s frustrating for them as well, there could be an emergency call, there’s a lot of people getting stabbed and murdered, lots of people need help and we have officers here dealing with nonsense,” he said.
An Insulate Britain spokesman, Liam Norton, has previously defended the disruption and harm their actions have caused to the public, by saying that it is similar to damage during the Second World War.
On Monday, Nortan said: “We know that the public is frustrated and annoyed at the disruption we have caused. They should know that one way or another this country will have to stop emitting carbon.
“We can do that now in an orderly, planned way, insulating homes and preventing thousands of deaths from fuel poverty or we can wait until millions have lost their homes and are fighting for water or starving to death.”
Brexit leader Nigel Farage, who has said that the group should be treated like terrorists, has warned that if the government and police fail to stop the group from disrupting society “it’s going to turn quite nasty on the streets,” with people taking justice into their own hands.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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