Five Just Stop Oil protesters attacked after blocking Pride in the London parade -TGN

Just Stop Oil protesters blocked the Pride in London parade (Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images).

Five people have been charged after Just Stop Oil activists blocked the Pride in London parade.

On Saturday (July 1), seven activists were arrested by Metropolitan Police officers after disrupting the parade, bringing it to a brief standstill.

Members of the environmental and climate action group made their way in front of the parade as it passed through Piccadilly, stopping it before spraying black paint on the road and laying in front of the floats, chanting “stop the oil”.

On Sunday (July 2), the force announced that five individuals aged between 22 and 68 had been charged under the Public Order Act for conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

The five were released on bail to attend Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 4 August.

Two other men, aged 19 and 22, have been released on bail while further inquiries continue.

Before Pride took place in London, Just Stop Oil made demands on the Pride organization.

The demands include Pride in London being open about who its sponsors are, making a statement demanding an end to new oil and gas exploration, and organizing a meeting to discuss participation in the civil resistance to climate change.

Pride in London did not seem to meet these demands, resulting in the group’s promise of action.

In a rack prior to the protest, LGBTQ+ members of Just Stop Oil said “Pride was born from protest”.

“It shows how far we’ve come as a community, that highly polluting industries and the banks that finance them now see Pride as a useful vehicle to clear their reputations, waving rainbow flags in one hand (while) accelerating social collapse with the other,” the group said.

“How would those who sparked the gay liberation movement during the 1969 Stonewall riots think of the corporatized spectacle that Pride has become?”

The action at Pride in London follows a number of high-profile demonstrations by the group in recent weeks and months, during which they disrupted the Ashes at Lord’s and the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield, as well as blocking major roads in and around the capital.