71 year-old Banbury grandmother arrested after scaling railings at Downing Street in environmental protest

The protest, which took place at 11:15 this morning involved a number of environmental protestors attempting to scale the gates of Downing Street whilst others sat down in the road to block the entrance, some gluing their hands to the road.

The morning of action followed BP's announcement of a £7 billion profit for the last quarter, which galvanised the Just Stop Oil protestors to resume their demands that the government halt all new oil and gas consents and licences after the group’s month of action in October.

Rachel Payne, from Banbury, who is retired with five children and five grandchildren, said: “A world built on sustainable energy resources is possible through proper funding of renewable technologies that have been developed. But the public are not told the truth about the climate crisis and breakdown and our government is failing to tackle the problem.

"While fossil fuel companies are making obscene profits from wrecking our future, our government is issuing new licences for more fossil fuel extraction.”

A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said: “We demand that Rishi Sunak U-turns on new oil and gas. This genocidal policy will kill millions of people while failing to address the worst cost of living crisis this country has ever seen.

“It’s time for a serious windfall tax on big oil, without the get-out-of-jail-free tax credits that will encourage more oil and gas that we cannot afford.

“Vulnerable people will be freezing to death in their homes this winter, unable to afford a can of soup while his Government refuses to tax the rich and the big energy companies that are profiting from our misery.

“We owe it to our young people to stop fossil fuels, we owe it to our workers to create a just transition to a zero-carbon economy, we owe it to our old people to enable them to live with dignity. We are not prepared to stand by and watch while everything we love is destroyed.”

Addressing the protests on LBC this morning, Assistant Commissioner of the Met Police Matt Twist said: “It’s been incredibly frustrating for the people of London, we have seen people get cross and angry about the levels of disruption.

"Our priorities are to get there quickly, to engage with the protestors and prove the offence of highway obstruction, and then to remove them quickly.

"The important thing is whether 99 per cent or one per cent of the population supports the cause, we will police it impartially.

"What we have seen in this case is a relatively small group of people have caused serious disruption to London and as a result of that it is absolutely our intention to make sure they are all brought to justice.”

The Just Stop Oil protestors say they will be returning to Downing Street today, tomorrow, and the next day and every day until their demands of no new oil and gas in the UK is met.