Divers argued with protesters and took direct action against activists, with some dragging them out of the road or snatching signs off them and hurling them to the ground
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Angry drivers are dragging Just Stop Oil protesters blocking a street out of the road.
About a dozen protesters from the anti-oil campaign group are sitting in the middle of Harleyford Street outside Oval Station, south London, causing a build-up of traffic.
Furious drivers argued with protesters and took direct action against activists, with some dragging them out of the road or snatching signs and hurling them to the ground.
One driver accelerated towards them before stopping while another driver mounted the road to get around them.
The protesters keep returning back into the road after being forcibly moved.
In the protesters’ Twitter feed Just Stop Oil they said: “At noon today, 61 Just Stop Oil supporters stopped traffic on Charing Cross Road, Kensington High Street, Kennington Road and Blackfriars Road, demanding that the Government halts all new oil and gas consents and licences.
Anna Berrill, a 20-year-old philosophy student from Leeds wrote on the social media feed: “I’m doing this because it breaks my heart to witness the tragedies that are happening and will keep coming because of our actions, and to live in a crumbling world and not do anything is unbearable.”
Helen Redfern, 57, a grandmother of four and social enterprise founder from Gateshead, said: “I’m joining the Just Stop Oil campaign today because for me, taking nonviolent direct action seems to be the only option left to me.
“The Government are not taking the devastating effects of the climate emergency seriously. They’re still granting new oil and gas licenses when it’s clear that oil and gas are the problem, not the solution.
“I cannot sit by and watch people suffering around the world already, knowing that unless we act fast, more and more people will suffer more and more climate related disasters now and in the future.”
David Nixon, 36, from Barnsley, said: “There is no grey area anymore. It’s now black & white—we either take radical action or we lose everything. Collective suicide, code red, doomed. How much worse do the descriptions have to get before we act to try to salvage what we can?”
Jim Green, 66, a father of two and retired primary teacher from Norwich, said: “Like many others, I helped deliver food parcels during the pandemic, but there is a time when trying to be a good neighbour involves getting real about the climate crisis and acting appropriately.
“I would love to ask the Prime Minister why we followed the science during the pandemic but ignore it in response to the climate crisis? And why we give more in subsidies to the oil and gas companies than to the poorest countries in the world?”
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