Just Stop Oil protesters halt meeting in parliament

During a meeting in the Houses of Parliament, Just Stop Oil protesters brought proceedings to a halt this morning.

On Wednesday, May 17, during a meeting about the policing of protests at the King’s coronation, Just Stop Oil staged a protest which brought the hearing to a halt before they were ejected by security, writes The Telegraph.

The Home Affairs Select Committee held a meeting today on the way the coronation was policed, during which pre-emptive arrests were made in an effort to allow the event to run smoothly.

Video footage of the live feed shows Members of the controversial protest group clearly visible, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with ‘Just Stop Oil,’ sat behind Temporary Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist.

As one of the protesters stands up the camera cuts away to MP Tim Loughton who breaks off his questioning with a weary shake of his head and an exasperated roll of the eyes.

Just before the filming was stopped an MP can be heard complaining: ‘Oh come on, come on officer, come on we’re not having this.’

It is understood that the protesters were then removed from the building to allow the meeting to carry on.

Once the meeting and live stream was resumed Mr Loughton offered some clarification: ‘To be clear, they were Just Stop Oil protesters who tried to undermine the activities of this committee with our witnesses today.’

In the interval, Labour MP, Dame Diana Johnson said: ‘We take very seriously that Parliament should be open to members of the public, that’s very important.

But she also added that it was equally important that the investigation should not be interrupted before she thanked the police for dealing swiftly with the incident.

The Metropolitan Police made a total of 64 arrests on the day of the coronation and confirmed that 52 were ‘related to concerns people were going to disrupt the event, and arrests included to prevent a breach of the peace and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.’

Unfortunately one of the people detained was not a protester but an avid fan of the Royal family, Alice Chambers was mistakenly arrested and held for 13 hours.