Six arrested as climate activists block road near UK parliament

Climate activists blocked a road near the UK parliament on Tuesday with a Valentine's-themed protest, before being dragged away by members of the public, with police making six arrests.

Activists from the group Animal Rebellion lit flares as they sat at a table with a candelabra and champagne flutes on Westminster Bridge in central London.

One wore a mask with the face of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in a protest against government subsidies for animal farming and fishing. Other activists sat on the road with placards.

"Where is the love in a food system contributing to climate destruction and ecological collapse?" the group wrote on Twitter. It calls for a "plant-based future".

Police said they arrested five activists for blocking the road and a sixth person for assaulting a protester.

The activist group posted a video showing several men roughly pulling away the protesters and dragging them along the ground as a crowd watched and drivers honked horns.

A police officer grappled with a man after he pulled one protester to the side of the road.

Animal Rebellion is an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion climate campaigners. It has freed laboratory test dogs, occupied a Michelin-starred restaurant and poured out milk in supermarkets.

The protest came just before fellow climate campaigners Just Stop Oil read out a statement outside Downing Street warning they will "escalate" direct action from April unless Sunak halts all new fossil fuel projects.