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Extinction Rebellion eco-zealots have stormed a five-star central London hotel and sprayed oil across the front in fresh anti-fossil fuel protests.
Disguised in hi-vis jackets, the eco-protesters have used ladders to climb on top of the entrance to May Fair Hotel, where they have unfurled a banner with ‘End Oil Colonialism’.
Video show a group of activists lying down inside the building shouting the phrase, while others hold banners outside with the words ‘Justice for Africa’.
The hotel, just a short walk from Buckingham Palace, is currently playing host to the Africa E&P Summit and Exhibition.
According to the event’s website, the summit aims to ‘bring together Africa’s upstream industry for a unique event shaped for companies active in Africa’s oil and energy game’.
Representatives from a dozen African governments are attending, while speakers at this year’s event include Somalian resources minister Mohamed Hashi Arabey Abdi, President and CEO of Africa Oil Corp, Keith Hill, and representatives from oil giant Shell.
Sponsors include US energy giant ExxonMobil and French petrol firm TotalEnergies. Online tickets – allowing people to view the event remotely – cost as much as £500 per person.
Police are at the scene and have taped-off an area around the hotel’s entrance. The Met Police say some protesters have glued themselves together inside the building and police ‘debonding teams’ are currently attempting to unstick them. No arrests have yet been made.
Eco-activists have entered a swanky five-star Mayfair hotel as part of an anti-oil protest
The group have also unfurled a banner with ‘End Oil Colonialism’ across of the front of the May Fair Hotel on Stratton Street
According to the event’s website, the summit aims to ‘bring together Africa’s upstream industry for a unique event shaped for companies active in Africa’s oil and energy game’
Video shows protesters lying down inside the building shouting the phrase, while others hold banners outside with the words ‘Justice for Africa’
Police are at the scene and have taped-off an area around the hotel’s entrance. The Met Police say some protesters have glued themselves together inside the building and police ‘debonding teams’ are currently attempting to unstick them. No arrests have yet been made
Sponsors include US energy giant ExxonMobil and French petrol firm TotalEnergies, while BP also sponsored last year’s event, which took place at the same hotel. Online tickets – allowing people to view the event remotely – cost as much as £500 per person. Pictured: Protesters hold signs outside the hotel during today’s protest
A Met Police spokesperson said: ‘We were called at 7.18am on Tuesday, 17 May to reports of criminal damage to a building at Stratton Street, W1.
‘Officers attended. At the scene a group of protesters had glued themselves together and paint had been sprayed on a building.
‘The police de-bonding team and local officers remain on scene. There have been no arrests. The scene remains in place and the incident ongoing.’
Taking to Twitter to announce today’s protest, Extinction Rebellion Sheffield wrote on their website: ‘A coalition of environmental groups including XR Sheffield and XRY Sheffield disrupt the entrance to the Africa Energies Summit at the Mayfair Hotel.
‘Activists drop an ‘END OIL COLONIALISM’ banner from the entrance of the hotel.’
Speaking at the scene, one protester, dressed in a suit and doing a piece to camera, said: ‘We are not seeing any kind of development (in Africa). That’s the line they are going to be spinning.
‘As has been going on in Africa for literally hundreds of years now, this is conscious underdevelopment of Africa. And it is absolutely terrible. We are trying to send a really clear message that our generation, the people coming up now, we don’t believe a country has to grow forever. That is completely insane.’
Meanwhile, in a post on Twitter, journalist Jason Parkinson, who was at the scene at the time, wrote: ‘Extinction Rebellion activists currently disrupting the Africa E&P Summit and Exhibition at Mayfair Hotel in London. Oil sprayed across hotel front and across British flags.’
It comes as the eco-group vowed to send ‘millions of people onto the streets’ in defiance of a new Government crackdown on disruptive ‘guerrilla protests’.
The climate change protest group said it is ‘foolish’ for ministers to think announcing new ‘curbs’ will stop people ‘taking to the streets to demand their Government act to ensure a safe future for people in the UK and around the world’, as it set out its intention for action from September 10.
It comes after the Public Order Bill was unveiled as part of the Queen’s Speech, with harsher sentences and new criminal offences for those involved in some types of protest.
The Bill seeks to outlaw tactics in England and Wales such as protesters ‘locking on’ to public transport infrastructure or gluing themselves to roads, which have been adopted by campaign groups such as Insulate Britain.
It will carry a maximum penalty of six months and an unlimited fine.
Stop and search powers will allow police to detain campaigners carrying bike locks and other equipment designed to make themselves difficult to remove.
A new offence will also be introduced to specifically ban the obstruction of key national infrastructure such as airports, railways and newspaper printing presses, which will be punishable by up to 12 months in prison and an unlimited fine.
The move represents a bid to revive measures which were previously put forward under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill but had to be scrapped after being knocked back by the House of Lords.
In a sign of the Government’s determination to drive through the measures, officials said the legislation is set to be introduced in Parliament on Wednesday.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) has vowed to send ‘millions of people onto the streets’ in defiance of a new Government crackdown on disruptive ‘guerrilla protests’
It comes after the Public Order Bill was unveiled as part of the Queen’s Speech, with harsher sentences and new criminal offences for those involved in some types of protest
An activist from the Extinction Rebellion, a global environmental movement, smashes a window at HSBC headquarters during a protest in Canary Wharf last year
Charlie Waterhouse, from XR, said: ‘It is foolish to think that announcing new curbs in the Queen’s Speech will stop people taking to the streets to demand their Government act to ensure a safe future for people in the UK and around the world.
‘As we in Extinction Rebellion know full well: what we do works. It’s worked countless times before. It has worked to give us weekends and the vote, human rights and freedom. And it will work again.
‘Faced with a Government incapable of anything other than a desperate attempt to shore-up its own power and cover-up its criminality, it is the only thing we can do.
‘To be a bystander is not enough…
‘So Boris Johnson and Priti Patel, we thank you. Our organisations were set up to break the law to drive positive change. Your actions show that we are winning.’
The Bill will create new criminal offences of ‘locking on’ and going equipped to ‘lock on’ to other people, objects or buildings in order to cause ‘serious disruption’, with a maximum penalty of up to six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both.
A new offence of interfering with key national infrastructure – such as airports, railways and printing presses – will carry a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison, an unlimited fine, or both.
It will also become illegal to obstruct major transport works, such as the HS2 high-speed rail link, again punishable by up to six months in prison, an unlimited fine, or both.
The Bill will also extend stop-and-search powers so the police can seize articles related to the new offences, while new serious disruption prevention orders will be available for those who repeatedly cause criminal disruption.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said ministers are determined to prevent protesters bringing the country to ‘a grinding halt’, adding: ‘The law-abiding, responsible majority have had enough of anti-social, disruptive protests carried out by a self-indulgent minority who seem to revel in causing mayhem and misery for the rest of us.’
Ms Patel denied she is attempting to erode the right to protest, describing it as a ‘fundamental right… that we all cherish dearly’ and dismissing such claims put forward by opponents as a ‘lazy excuse’.
- Are you staying at the Mayfair Hotel and did you see the Extinction Rebellion protest today?: Contact us: [email protected]
