Just Stop Oil protesters attempted to scale the gates of Downing Street on Tuesday morning - calling for stiffer windfall taxes for energy firms after BP announced a £7bn quarterly profit.
At 11:15am, 22 environmental activists “swarmed towards the gates” of Downing Street, home to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with some trying to climb the gates and others blocking the entrance via Whitehall by sitting in the road.
Some activists glued their hands to the Tarmac.
Video circulated on social media showed police officers forcibly removing the protesters, dragging them away from the scene.
🚨 BREAKING: DOWNING STREET BLOCKED 🚨
— Just Stop Oil ⚖️💀🛢 (@JustStop_Oil) November 1, 2022
🚧 At 11:15 this morning, 22 Just Stop Oil supporters swarmed towards the gates of Downing St. A number of them attempted to scale the gates while others sat down in the road to block the entrance, with some gluing their hands to the tarmac pic.twitter.com/KzxtOUpQdH
The protesters are calling on the Government to halt all new oil and gas licenses, and larger taxes for energy firms.
Just Stop Oil said: “The action today follows the announcement by BP of a bumper profit of £7bn for the last quarter alone, while it expects to pay only £700m in windfall tax on its North Sea operations for the whole year.
“It’s time for a serious windfall tax on big oil, without the get-out-of-jail-free tax credits that will encourage more oil and gas that we cannot afford. Vulnerable people will be freezing to death in their homes this winter, unable to afford a can of soup while...[big energy companies] are profiting from our misery.”
BP is the latest oil major to report huge profits after revealing a quarterly surplus of $8.2 billion (£7.1 billion), driven by a surge in prices.
Shell and US-listed ExxonMobil and Chevron have already announced bumper profits, leading to calls for additional windfall taxes.
🛢 They are demanding that the Govt halt all new oil & gas licenses. The action today follows the announcement by BP of a bumper profit of £7bn for the last quarter alone, while it expects to pay only £700m in windfall tax on its North Sea operations for the whole year. pic.twitter.com/Ly1mxDBTCH
— Just Stop Oil ⚖️💀🛢 (@JustStop_Oil) November 1, 2022
A windfall tax is a one-off tax that the Government imposes on a company or a group of companies when they benefit from something that happened outside their control.
Energy companies are benefiting from the increased demand for energy following the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Just Stop Oil’s action on Tuesday is the latest in a series of daily protests held by the group throughout October, that have brought chaos to London’s roads and seen a number of buildings vandalised.
