CLIMATE protesters have covered the US embassy in London with orange paint in a protest over Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
Just Stop Oil activists shared footage on social media of them spraying an exterior wall of the US embassy at Nine Elms with orange paint shortly after Trump declared his win in Florida on Wednesday.
The Metropolitan Police said two men, aged 25 and 72, were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and held in custody.
The campaigners, who have targeted high-profile sites and artefacts like Stonehenge and the Magna Carta with their characteristic orange paint, said democracy has been “hijacked by corporate interests and billionaires”.
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said: “The only real winner of today’s election is the corporate power that controls the major parties in both the US and UK.
“Regardless of who sits in the White House, corporations and billionaires will ensure that the interests of the fossil fuel industry will continue to be prioritised over the wellbeing of ordinary people.”
They added: “As long as democracy is hijacked by corporate interests and billionaires, it will fail to deliver the change ordinary people are crying out for. This will always leave the door open for fake populists like Trump to exploit the disaffection many feel.
“Ordinary people have to step up, get organised and make change happen, because it should be clear by now, no political leaders are coming to save us. Just Stop Oil.”
In the short 24-second clip online the two protesters can be seen covering the wall in paint before they were arrested by armed police officers.
Just Stop Oil is not the only group to protest Trump, as London’s mayor Sadiq Khan’s office permitted activists to fly a blimp of the US president as a crying baby in a nappy ahead of his visit in 2018.
Deputy assistant commissioner Andy Valentine said: “Officers from the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Unit arrested these two men within minutes, ensuring that they could not cause any further damage to the embassy.
“This activity is vandalism purporting as a protest and we will continue to have a zero-tolerance attitude to actions such as this.”
