Thirteen people have been arrested as police attempted to halt thousands of anti-lockdown protesters marching through the centre of London on Saturday.
Demonstrators paraded banners and lit flares as they walked from Hyde Park along Oxford Street, Chancery Lane, the Embankment and Parliament Square before heading up Whitehall.
“Our officers are continuing to engage with people attending the ongoing protests in central London,” the Metropolitan Police tweeted.
“Those gathering in crowds are being encouraged to disperse and go home.
“Officers will take enforcement action where necessary. This could be a fixed penalty notice, or arrest.”
Similar demonstrations took place in Manchester as hundreds of people gathered outside the National Football Museum before marching to Greater Manchester Police’s headquarters.
The protesters carried “police reports” containing claims the national lockdown was a crime.
The Independent has approached Greater Manchester Police for comment, but there were no reports of arrests.
People march in a protest against the lockdown in Manchester on Saturday
(Reuters)
The protests came as a group of cross-party MPs and peers wrote to Priti Patel to ask her to lift a ban on protests during the Covid-19 lockdown in the wake of confrontations with police at a vigil in south London following the killing of Sarah Everard.
More than 60 MPs and peers signed the letter to the home secretary and warned that allowing the police to criminalise people for protesting is “not acceptable and is arguably not lawful”.
Protesting is not listed as a “reasonable excuse” for leaving home under the government’s coronavirus regulations.
