Just Stop Oil activists block Whitehall but hit out at 'lies' they targeted Cenotaph

Pictures showed protesters being held to the ground near the war memorial

Just Stop Oil has hit out at “lies” accusing them of targeting the Cenotaph after dozens of protesters were arrested after bringing traffic near Downing Street to a halt.

A stream of politicians including Tory party deputy chairman Lee Anderson accused the group of targeting the war memorial on Monday.

The campaign group said 130 people were involved in a march towards Parliament Square which was broken up by police.

Photos taken around midday showed activists on the ground near the Cenotaph.

Eyewitness reports suggested some protesters had stuck themselves to the ground in Whitehall, but Just Stop Oil said on Twitter the protesters had been "dragged off the road and arrested for marching towards Parliament Square".

Activists said they had been moved to the base of the Cenotaph after shutting down traffic on Whitehall, an account supported by one officer at the scene.

A mother-of-one lying cuffed on the base of the memorial told the PA news agency: “They arrested us in the road and we were dragged to the pavement and then back over here.”

One officer added to PA that the protesters had been moved to the site “to get them off the road”, adding: “It was for their own safety, obviously it’s quite a busy road.”

Just Stop Oil protest
The campaign group said 130 people were involved in a march towards Parliament Square which was broken up by police
PA

Mr Anderson said that JSO were “now stuck to the Cenotaph” as he shared a picture on social media site X.

“Simple solution here. Give them stronger glue and leave them there till Sunday,” the MP added.

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper added: “Targeting the Cenotaph is totally unacceptable. Full support for the police in taking necessary enforcement action.”

JSO accused Mr Anderson of “tweeting lies about protesters being glued to the Cenotaph”.

“The reality is that they were dragged off the road and arrested by police for protesting in the street, under legislation his corrupt party introduced,” the group said in response to his message.

JSO demanded an apology from Ms Cooper, adding: “These are peaceful protesters marching towards Parliament Square, arrested under anti-protest laws and dragged off the road. Why won’t you speak out about that?”

The action from the climate activists came ahead of a protest in support of the Palestinian people during the war with Israel, coinciding with Armistice Day.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, organisers of the planned demonstration, said they have no intention to go to Whitehall, in order to avoid the Cenotaph.

But Ms Braverman, who has called pro-Palestinian demonstrations “hate marches”, pro-actively warned that any protesters who vandalise the Cenotaph should be “put into a jail cell faster than their feet can touch the ground”.

BRITAIN-CLIMATE-POLITICS-DEMO
AFP via Getty Images

A JSO spokesman said: “We have not targeted the Cenotaph. The police moved people there when they were being arrested.”

Just Stop Oil recently launched a three-week campaign of protests, which they claimed would cause disruption on an “unprecedented scale”.

The climate activist group is demanding the government immediately halt all new oil, gas, and coal projects in the UK.

Earlier on Monday, two of the group’s protesters were arrested for smashing glass covering a painting on display at the National Gallery in London.

They used safety hammers to break the glass protecting Diego Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus painting from the 1960s.

The piece was slashed by suffragette Mary Richardson in 1914.

The Metropolitan Police said activists had been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.

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