A section of the M56 in the shadow of Manchester Airport was brought to a standstill this morning after several environmental protesters glued themselves to the tarmac.
Demonstrators from Insulate Britain walked out into the road at the Hale Four Seasons roundabout at 8:30am and quickly used super-strong glue to stick themselves to the asphalt.
In all, 11 activists were arrested by cops — who used syringes and paintbrushes to apply a solvent to release the protesters.
By 1pm, the scene had completely cleared, after dozens of officers arrived at the roundabout to deal with the disruption.
One demonstrator who glued his hand to the road apologised to motorists whose days had been affected by the action — but also claimed his group had to act due to a ‘desperate situation’.
“We’re obviously quite sorry to do this, we’re sorry to have to do this,” he told the Manchester Evening News while clutching a banner and glued to the road.
“This is about years of government failure, they’ve known about this issue for so long now.
“The situation is really desperate, if you look at the climate science.
“I don’t think we’re causing a huge amount of disruption, where we are, and the police are actually causing more disruption with the way they have policed this operation.”
As he spoke, one woman yelled ‘idiot’ from her passing car at the group — one of a number of motorists hurled obscenities at the activists, honked their horns in disagreement, and revved their engines at their disgust throughout the four-and-a-half-hour action.
However, those incidents were isolated and in the minority of passers-by — with one cyclist even stopping to tell the band of demonstrators to ‘keep up the good work’.
The protester also accused Boris Johnson of ‘treason’ for ‘not decarbonising [the UK] as rapidly as possible’.
He said: “We’re here because the government is failing to address the biggest threat to humanity that it’s ever faced.
“Boris Johnson is a traitor to this country, it’s an act of treason to not decarbonise our society as rapidly as possible. He’s endangering the lives of every single person in this country.”
Insulate Britain’s demands to the government are primarily to ensure all social housing in the UK to be ‘fully insulated by 2025’ and ‘all houses to be given a full carbon retrofit by 2030’ across the country, he added.
Eventually, he and his fellow activists were arrested and carried into police vans — after cops methodically applied a releasing agent to their hands.
Due to the nature of the chemicals used, the freeing process was a slow one — with some hands taking almost half an hour to come free.
They included two of the protestors, who not only stuck their hands to the road, but also glued their interlocked fingers together.
In recent weeks, other Insulate Britain protests seen in and around London’s M25 have been characterised by tense stand-offs with irate motorists — but the atmosphere in Hale this morning was calmer.
The group’s action came in the middle of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, where world leaders are meeting to discuss how they can tackle the climate emergency.
One major positive from the conference is a £14 billion deal to reverse and end deforestation in 100 nations by 2030.
Signatories included Brazil — where huge portions of the Amazon rainforest have been chopped down to make way for agriculture.
Closer to home, Andy Burnham appeared to condemn the action today, tweeting: “I can’t see how this type of protest does anything other than alienate people from the climate cause.
“We need to win much wider public support for climate action. This is doing the opposite.”
Shortly after the culmination of the incident, Greater Manchester Police confirmed 11 people had been arrested at the scene.
“A total of 11 people have now been arrested. The majority of protesters had glued themselves to the road before being later removed by officers and detained on suspicion of causing danger to road-users (section 22a of Road Traffic Act),” the force tweeted.
“Disruption was kept to a minimum as officers ensured routes to the nearby motorway and airport weren’t blocked, and all roads in the area have now returned to normal.
“We thank the public for their co-operation despite their understandable frustration.”
