Extinction Rebellion activists GLUE their hands to pavement outside Parliament in London

Extinction Rebellion protesters have tried to storm Cardiff’s new BBC building after demonstrators glued their hands to the pavement outside Parliament on the seventh day of climate chaos – with 232 arrests so far.

The eco-warriors descended on the studios in Central Square in the Welsh capital as some of the 400-strong mob tried and failed to shove past police.

Earlier today fellow activists glued themselves to the ground to block entrances to Parliament in Westminster in a dramatic escalation of their two-week campaign of disruption.

Protesters said they ‘jumped the barriers and ran past armed police to glue (themselves) on to the floor outside the House of Lords’.

The tactic, a staple of previous XR demonstrations, was accompanied by scores of others staging a sit-in elsewhere around the perimeter of the parliamentary estate, including at the Carriage Gates. 

A separate protest, carried out by XR ally Animal Rebellion, saw activists locked on top of a pink slaughterhouse truck parked sideways across nearby Victoria Street. 

The campaigners said they are demanding ‘a plant-based food system as a means to mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis and reduce the risk of future pandemics’. They have previously used fake blood in their demonstrations.

Police arrested another 72 Extinction Rebellion activists yesterday as they swooped on demonstrators lying in the road to block Boris Johnson’s route to Prime Ministers’ Questions yesterday. 

It brings the total number of eco-warriors detained to 232 since they kick-started their fortnight of chaos in the capital on Friday following a coronavirus recess. Police said there had been ‘dozens’ more arrests today. 

The arrests were made for a range of offences including breaching Public Order conditions, obstructing the highway, obstructing police and assault on an emergency worker.  

It comes a day after they blocked Bute Terrace in both directions and caused traffic delays around the city. Around 400 people are estimated to have attended the protest, which is part of a week-long campaign across the UK.

A spokesman for South Wales Police said: ‘Officers are currently in attendance at a protest in Central Square in Cardiff. One person has been arrested on suspicion of committing criminal damage.

‘Officers are working to engage with protest organisers and attendees in order to remind them of their obligations under the current Coronavirus legislation and the overarching goal for everyone to take personal responsibility by following Welsh Government regulations to Keep Wales Safe.

‘We are duty-bound to take into account all relevant legislation, and South Wales Police has strived to maintain a consistent policing style of engaging, explaining and encouraging, and enforcing as last resort where necessary, throughout this public health emergency – an approach we intend to continue.’

XR spokesperson Tamsin Omand, 35, from London, said that protesters wanted the Prime Minister to see and hear their action.

‘The climate and ecological emergency has to be the absolute priority – how we are going to transform society into one that is fit for the crises we are already experiencing and the ones coming down the road,’ she said. 

‘We are seeing a Parliament that has failed on every count – Boris Johnson wasn’t even around for the first Cobras (of the coronavirus pandemic), so if that is the attitude he is going to take to the climate and ecological emergency we are in dire straits.

‘Disruption is a core tenet of how XR works and how we have managed to achieve so much in a short period of time.

‘We have been outside Downing Street blocking his route on both sides and of course he’s encountering us here in the square – I think we are impossible to ignore.’