Just Stop Oil shut down the centre of Sheffield this afternoon in their first action of 2023.
Police were again outfoxed by eco-zealots with banners walking slowly along the Yorkshire city’s roads preventing traffic passing and causing huge queues.
Today members of the Just Stop Oil group wearing high-vis jackets processed along major roads, heading from close to Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane stadium into the city centre.
South Yorkshire Police closed roads to try to divert traffic, but several lorries were stuck behind the human blockade with horns blaring at the activists who were chanting: ‘Just stop oil’, ‘Just stop gas’ and ‘no more coal mines’ at the top of their voices.
One critic who say them tweeted footage of the group and said: ‘A flock of rich privileged Brits from Just Stop Oil is protesting the laws of physics, economy and common sense in Sheffield this morning’.
In London, The Met has already admitted the tactic of slow walking makes it harder for officers to arrest and prosecute them for unlawful obstruction – but critics have said police should arrest immediately due to the disruption.
Just Stop Oil shut down the centre of Sheffield this afternoon with another of their marches to evade arrest
Just Stop Oil protesters on the slow march also tried to hand out leaflets to people on the streets they shut down.
Yesterday their comrades from Extinction Rebellion let off smoke flares and covered the ground in black paint outside the Home Office, leading to two arrests.
Around ten eco-zealots were surrounded by police as they held placards and lay on the ground at the entrance of the Westminster building.
Protesters poured the black paint – which looked like crude oil – out of plastic buckets marked ‘End Coal’, while two of the activists appeared to have attached themselves together with a large tube.
It comes two weeks after the climate change group said it would abandon disruptive protests.
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But the group have been spurred to demonstrate after the Government’s decision to approve a new coal mine in Cumbria, passed by Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove last month.
Met Police were called to the Home Office at around 11am to disperse the group, where they arrested two men on suspicion of causing criminal damage.
The two demonstrators on the ground set off flares and shouted, while others dressed as yellow birds and one man as a skeleton.
Some of the group held signs reading ‘cut the ties to fossil fuels’.
But two weeks ago Extinction Rebellion (XR) said it would abandon disruptive protests, saying it would ‘prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks’.
However, XR said it was holding its demonstration to protest the Cumbria coal mine.
Two protesters put their arms in a tub and set off flares outside the Home Office in London
A cleaner attempts to mop up the black paint outside the Home Office following the protest
Staff and security were struggling to remove the paint following the demonstrations
