This is the moment a pink boat used by climate change activists to blockade Oxford Circus in London was towed away by police officers, after 100 hours at the heart of the protests.
The bright pink Berta Cacares was finally carted away shortly after actress Dame Emma Thompson had climbed on top of it to deliver a speech during the protests.
Crowds made up of protesters from the Extinction Rebellion group attempted to prevent the police removing the ship while chanting ‘we have more boats’.
It took a team of engineers, with more than 200 police officers and a mountain of equipment, to remove the boat, which had become a symbol of the protest.
Organisers said that on Easter Monday they planned to expand the protest to include ‘picnics on motorways’.
Police arrived at midday to start attempting to move the boat, which took several hours because of the protesters who had attached themselves to it.
Hi-vis jacketed officers formed two concentric rings around the boat and shepherded protesters away.
The boat was encircled by one ring of at least 30 officers, which came hours after police told of the ‘strain’ the protests were putting on them with officers working 12-hour shifts and having rest days cancelled.
Crowds of people watched the operation to the remove the boat while drumming and chanting, with many carrying banners and flags.
More than 100 hours after the boat was stationed at the crossroads of two of London’s busiest streets – Oxford Street and Regent Street – police put it on a trailer and started to tow it away
The boat was escorted by walking – and at times jogging – police men and women at all times as it was moved away
Huge crowds thronged around the pink boat in Oxford Circus until it was towed away
After the final protester was removed, specialist officers climbed aboard and took down the mast, before the boat was connected to a trailer.
As police attempted to deal with those blocking the route, others swarmed back into Oxford Circus, closing off the opportunity for the police and the boat to head back the way they came.
One woman was arrested for trying to barge through police lines as officers started to move the boat away, while crowds booed and shouted ‘fascists’ as police escorted the woman away.
This week’s Extinction Rebellion (XR) demonstrations have closed key routes through the capital, cost businesses tens of millions in lost revenue, inconvenienced half a million people a day, and resulted in at least 682 arrests, but show no sign of abating.
Yesterday organisers said they had seen an increase in people joining up, pointing to warm weather, the Easter holiday, and a David Attenborough documentary about climate change broadcast on Thursday evening as motivators.
Police ran ahead of the route the boat was taking in order to clear prospective protestors out of the way
Dame Emma talks to members of the media from on top of the pink boat after police officers surrounded it today
The overstretched Met issued a plea that the willingness of so many people to be arrested was causing a ‘logistical problem’ for cell space and the wider criminal justice system.
The teenage founder of the millions-strong global movement of school strikes against climate change, Greta Thunberg, 16, told The Guardian she hopes to join the XR protests when she arrives in London this weekend.
Yesterday Dame Emma poured scorn on the Metropolitan Police’s decision to escalate its approach on the fifth day of the protests having taken a hammering for its light-touch strategy earlier in the week.
She said: ‘We didn’t ask for police resources, that is their decision. It’s not like we are burning things down. The police turned up because they have been asked to turn up. They decided to spend their money in this way, which I personally think is a waste of taxpayers’ money. We aren’t doing anything violent.’
She said it was ‘nonsensical’ to blame her and Extinction Rebellion, the group behind the protests, for potentially diverting police resources from tackling violent crime.
‘It is not my problem, it is their problem,’ she said. ‘It is the problem of Government, so don’t hand it back to me because I have dealt with this [climate change] for decades.
‘What this is about is a Government that would prefer not to listen, who would prefer to put entirely peaceful protesters into a f****** police cell instead of doing what they promised to do for decades. They are liars and hypocrites.’