Police have arrested 62 demonstrators so far
(Picture: PA)Extinction Rebellion protesters continued to cause chaos in London during a third day of demonstrations on Tuesday.
A Met police spokesman said the force had arrested a total of 62 people on the first days of two weeks of action planned by the group.
Two women were detained by officers on Tuesday for spray painting the floor outside the HM Revenue & Customs building with slogans including “Oil=Death”.
An elderly woman who lay in the road was carried off by four officers during the demonstration, while others laid on the floor in front of a banner reading: “Government in bed with climate criminals”.
After gathering at Parliament Square, campaigners ran towards slow-moving traffic on Whitehall.
Others glued themselves to the wall of the Selfridges department store.
A TfL spokesman said Parliament Street in Whitehall had been blocked in both directions and that there was slow-moving traffic in pockets of central London near Embankment and in Westminster due to XR action.
A 72-year-old protester said: “We’re just ordinary human beings who’ve come from all over the country. We’ve different backgrounds and pasts. We may be a little more courageous than some others but that’s all. We’re all in this together.”
Gaby, 48, from Bristol, who declined to give her full name, said she had been campaigning for environmental change since she was at school and said that XR had helped spur on a much-needed urgency to the movement.
She said: “For years and years you do little bits and small things happen but the change we need now is so urgent that as many people need to come out on the streets to show that they don’t agree with the direction our earth is going in.”
A silent protest where dozens of demonstrators painted themselves white and donned burlap fabric walked down from Trafalgar Square towards Whitehall.
They brandished signs reading: “Funding Climate Hell”, “Burned Gas Burned Our Future” and “Permitted New Oil Drilling In Spite of Crisis”.
A giant pink table erected in central London on Monday was dismantled by police.
Segments of the four-metre structure were seen being carried off by men in hard hats and blue overalls on Tuesday.
Earlier, the Metropolitan Police said officers had also removed chairs which the activists had glued themselves to and had made “many arrests”.
A cordon was put in place in the tourist hotspot of Covent Garden, blocking off parts of the Long Acre junction with Upper St Martin’s Lane.
XR kicked off its Impossible Rebellion protests on Monday when demonstrators blocked roads in central London, including around Trafalgar Square, as they demanded the Government immediately end investment in fossil fuels that are driving climate change.
The Met said a “significant” operation would be in place for the protests over the bank holiday weekend but also acknowledged the activists’ “important cause”.
