Why Won't Someone Stop THEM? Just Stop Oil Zealots Block An Ambulance As They Stage Road Stunts Bringing London Traffic To A Halt
Police officers standing by and watching Just Stop Oil activists on the Strand
Just Stop Oil protesters caused chaos on the roads today - even blocking an ambulance from passing - as they staged fresh protests today.
In video obtained by MailOnline, activists were seen walking slowly along Oxford Street in central London at the front of a long snake of barely-moving traffic when the ambulance gets stuck in the jam behind them.
But while police in Germany this week were seen dragging eco-fanatics off Berlin highways, Metropolitan Police officers appeared to take no immediate action to stop the protesters from the XR offshoot trying to bring the capital to a standstill.
Scotland Yard has come under fire for its approach to policing eco demonstrations, at times standing by or threatening members of the public with arrest if they try to get zealots to move.
By contrast, the German police officers this week drilled around protesters who had glued their hands to a road in Berlin before arresting them.
Just Stop Oil said its activists moved out of the way as soon as they realised the ambulance was behind them.
The ambulance made its way down Oxford Street on Thursday morning before reaching the long queue of traffic stuck behind the Just Stop Oil activists.
But it became stuck due to a number of lorries and vans blocking the one-way road ahead. The ambulance did not appear to have its sirens activated, but video shows the protesters continuing their march despite the vehicle being just a couple of cars behind them.
A spokesman for Just Stop Oil said: 'Our policy is, and has always been, to move out of the way for emergency vehicles with "blue lights" on.'
The call for UK police to force activists out of roads faster comes after the Home Secretary Suella Braverman criticised officers in some of their responses to 'militant' activists.
She said yesterday: 'There's a perception that at times [police] are supporting the militant protesters, as I said, giving them cups of tea or dancing along with them. I think that from a public confidence point of view, all of that is damaging. They need to be seen to be serious.
'They need to be seen to be responding actually, and swiftly, to the crimes that people are enduring: antisocial behaviour, vehicle theft, rape and serious sexual violence, burglary. Those are the priorities that the British people want the police to deliver.'
A Metropolitan Police spokesman told MailOnline that no arrests were made on Thursday over the protest.
Elsewhere in London activists from Just Stop Oil blocked a Ferrari driver on the Strand this morning at around 8.30am. Shortly before 9am, police issued a dispersal order to clamp down on another stunt at Waterloo Bridge.
In a tweet, a spokesman for Just Stop Oil said: 'Just 15 ordinary people, supported by trained march facilitators, are acting in resistance against this criminal Government and their attempt to licence 100 new fossil fuel projects. Other teams are preparing to join.'
They later added a second team had taken the eastbound carriageway on the Strand too, bringing the entire road to a halt.
Posting a picture of activists standing in front of a black Ferrari, the group said: 'Driver of £300,000 Ferrari realises they should have got the tube and saved £299,996.'
A third team of Just Stop Oil members also joined in the group's 'slow-marching'. This team, led by Phoebe Plummer, chanted 'no more oil', 'no more gas' and 'insulate Britain', video footage showed.
Ms Plummer has previously been involved in high-profile actions for Just Stop Oil, most famously being arrested after throwing a tin of Heinz tomato soup over a £76million Vincent Van Gogh painting in the National Gallery.
The protesters held signs and wore high-vis jackets as they stood in the centre of the tarmac.
In a statement on social media, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: 'At around 8.00am Just Stop Oil #protesters started to slow march in the roads on #TheStrand, #TrafalgarSquare and #BoroughHighStreet.
'Police are quickly on scene and engaging with protesters to minimise disruption to Londoners.'
A spokesman said that 'conditions' were issued to protesters at around 8.45am, and that they were asked to move out of the road as their slow walk 'was causing severe and deliberate disruption to those going about their daily business.' The protesters complied.
Police issued a Section 12 Public Order Act warning to the protesters. It stated: 'This JSO [Just Stop Oil] protest must use the pavement for protest within the London Boroughs of Westminster, Lambeth and Southwark until 23:59hrs on Thursday, 27 April 2023.'
Yesterday police seemed to strengthen action against the eco-zealots blocking traffic amid a warning by a Met boss that unclear laws were hindering efforts to keep the roads open.
Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists were threatened with arrest on Wednesday after conditions allowed officers to break up the group's third day of 'slow marches' in London.
Earlier in the week, officers were forced to stand by and even protect the activists from furious commuters.
Protesters need to be deemed to be causing 'serious disruption' for officers to intervene – but police chiefs are given no definition of what this actually means.
Deputy assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor, who is leading the Met's response to the protests, revealed Just Stop Oil did not cross this threshold earlier in the week because activists spent only 'about 15 minutes' on the road.
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