Young protestors from a new environmental activist group linked to Just Stop Oil are planning to cause massive disruption to central London with a week of action.
Newly launched group Youth Demand will hold rallies and protests in and around Westminster from Monday to Friday which could also see Tube stations targeted.
“They’re campaigning for no new coal, gas and drilling licences in the UK,” a spokesman told the Standard on Sunday. “[They also want] a two-way arms embargo into Israel.”
Youth Demand and Just Stop Oil are both part of the Umbrella coalition of groups, and previous protests have seen members sitting down in the street and being glued onto pavements.
The spokesman didn’t confirm exact plans but said the action would be week-long and that people would be invited to join in with the “hundreds” taking part. Youth Demand’s members are all over 18, it has been clarified.
The spokesman said: “New oil and gas licencing is ultimately a genocide, a man-made death. That is the same mentality with the situation in Palestine. It is essential to think of them together and not think of them as individual missions.”
A UN representative has recently condemned “increasingly severe crackdowns” on environmental protesters in the UK following a visit to the country.
The Youth Demand spokesman added: “With the increasingly authoritarian response to non violent protests in the UK, we have seen quite a few people targeted recently.
“The freedom to assemble and protest is becoming compromised.
“I think the notion there is hostility on the street is a media narrative and I don’t think that line will hold up.”
Just Stop Oil was most recently in the news when shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said a protestor delivered a letter meant for him to the wrong house.
The Metropolitan Police has been approached for comment about the Youth Demand action.
A Youth Demand statement added: “Politics has failed and young people will not accept a corrupt system that presents us with two parties who are content to allow mass death.
“We need real democracy and Labour and the Tories must agree to stop buying and selling weapons with Israel for them to battle-test on Palestinian children, and they must stop licensing the new oil and gas that is driving death and displacement around the world.”
