Rishi Sunak’s environment secretary Therese Coffey has ordered her department to suspend its engagement with Greenpeace, after activists staged an anti-oil protest at the PM’s constituency home.
The largely symbolic display of anger came as former home secretary Priti Patel and ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith raised concerns about Mr Sunak’s security arrangements, following the demonstration on the roof his constituency manor house.
The campaigners draped his home with an oil-black fabric at the prime minister’s North Yorkshire home to protest against the government’s plans to allow licences to be granted for further development of North Sea oil and gas.
North Yorkshire Police said the activists scaled the roof of his home at about 8am on Thursday, while Mr Sunak, his wife and children were on holiday in California, and stayed up until around 1.15pm, when they were arrested, before being released pending further enquiries.
Protester Alex Wilson said: “We’re all here because Rishi Sunak has opened the door to a new drilling frenzy in the North Sea while large parts of our world are literally on fire.”
