Home Office, MI5 and Bank of England sprayed with orange paint in latest Just Stop Oil protests

Nina Hossain reports on the protests

Iconic London institutions including the MI5 building, the Bank of England and the Home Office were sprayed orange by activists on Monday morning.

Just Stop Oil's latest round of central London targets were chosen to represent the pillars that support and maintain the power of the fossil fuel economy, the group said.

News Corp's London headquarters at London Bridge was also spray-painted by protesters.

Eight people were arrested on the 31st and final day of disruptive central London protests from the group.

Metropolitan Police arrested six people on suspicion of criminal damage, while City of London Police arrested a further two people who sprayed the Bank of England in Threadneedle Street.

The incidents occurred between 8:20am and 8:40am across the various locations.

Activists are demanding that the government halts all new oil and gas licences and consents.

City of London Police said two people were arrested outside the Bank of England.

Scotland Yard said protesters threw paint in a number of locations, naming Marsham Street, Millbank, London Bridge and Threadneedle Street.

“Officers responded quickly to all incidents and a number of people have now been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage,” the force tweeted.

A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said: “We are not prepared to stand by and watch while everything we love is destroyed, while vulnerable people go hungry and fossil fuel companies and the rich profit from our misery.

“The era of fossil fuels should be long gone, but the creeping tentacles of fossil fuel interests continue to corrupt our politics, government and the media, as they have for decades.

“How else do you explain a government ignoring sensible no-brainer policies like renewables, insulation and public transport, which would cut our energy bills and our carbon emissions, in favour of corrupt schemes to drill for uneconomic oil and gas at taxpayers expense?

“Well we’re done with begging. We are acting to stop new oil and gas because it is the right thing to do.

“As citizens, as parents we have every right under British law to protect ourselves and those we love.”

Drivers in London left their vehicles and dragged away protesters who were blocking roads in east London on Sunday as a woman said they were stopping her sick child from passing through.

Just Stop Oil's October protests include throwing tomato soup at a Van Gogh painting at the National Gallery and throwing cake in the face of a King Charles waxwork at Madame Tussaud's.

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