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Climate protesters glue hands to UK government building

Environmental protesters have daubed the windows of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in London in a deliberate attempt to provoke their arrests.

One protester climbed above the revolving doors of the department on Victoria Street in Westminster and wrote “frack off” in black spray paint, while a second was quickly apprehended by police after spraying the extinction symbol on BEIS’s windows.

The vandalism came as police started to remove protesters who had superglued themselves to card entry gates inside the staff entrance to the building.

Earlier, dozens of members of the group Extinction Rebellion locked themselves to revolving doors, while others glued themselves to glass.

At another entrance, protesters from the group Christian Climate Action could be seen through windows to have entered the lobby of the building and locked themselves to fittings.

Bell Selkie, 48, from Wales, was sitting next to her daughter, glued by her left hand to the door of BEIS and locked on her right. She said the effects of climate change were becoming obvious.

“The IPCC report in October gave us six to 12 years, and this is known to be a conservative report. If we don’t respond with a war-style effort now we are all fucked, all of us. My heart is breaking and I’ve got to do something, and I’m putting my life on hold,” she said.

Some protesters wore high-visibility vests and patches with the words “conscientious protector”. Asked what that meant, one demonstrator, who preferred not to be named, said: “I have a conscience and I’ve never done anything like this before; I have to do something. We have to protect the environment because if we don’t, all the other problems, all the other causes that exist, are pointless. Everything else is pointless.”

Contacts from inside the building said announcements had been made over the internal public address system that entrances and exits were blocked and no one was able to enter or leave the department.

In a statement, Extinction Rebellion said: “The UK government, specifically BEIS, is promoting fracking – meeting with fracking companies more than 30 times in the last three years, compared to zero times with anti-fracking groups – despite massive local opposition.

“From Preston New Road (665 days now and counting) in Lancashire, to Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire, to Horse Hill in Surrey, communities are coming together to fight against fracking.”

The protest on Monday morning is intended to be the first in a series continuing throughout the week and culminating with a mass civil disobedience action on Saturday, which activists are calling “rebellion day”.