Just Stop Oil protesters halt traffic and throw soup over Government department

Just after 11:30am on Monday, 12 protesters walked on to Victoria Street in Westminster and sat down while holding banners. Some glued themselves to the tarmac and each other.

A number of other protesters then threw soup on to the front of the building.

Just Stop Oil said that they targeted the BEIS because it is the Government department responsible for allowing new fossil fuel extraction and that they used soup in “a reference to the fact that countless families in this country cannot afford a tin of soup, and famine is rife across sub-Saharan Africa”.

The environmental activist group issued an invitation to the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, for talks. They also demanded that the Government halts all new oil and gas licences

A spokesperson said: “Just Stop Oil invites the Home Secretary Suella Braverman to come and meet with us and we will stop throwing soup.

“Join us on Thursday October 20 at 11am, in London, in public, to hear what is driving students, builders, engineers, care workers, vicars to throw soup at iconic paintings, to scale bridges, and to repeatedly, relentlessly block roads in the capital.

“We are ordinary people in nonviolent civil resistance in order to protect our rights, freedoms and our heritage. We seek to protect the lives and livelihoods of all humanity.”

Earlier on Monday, two Just Stop Oil protesters climbed to the top of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge which links Essex and Kent. This forced police to close it to traffic.

Monday’s actions follow over two weeks of continuous civil resistance by supporters of Just Stop Oil, with protesters spraying orange paint over the Aston Martin showroom on Park Lane on Sunday.

Since the campaign began on April 1, Just Stop Oil say that their supporters have been arrested over 1,750 times, and five are currently in prison.