Anti-lockdown protests: 36 arrested as demonstrators clash with police in London

March in capital comes as MPs urge government to lift restrictions on protests during lockdown

Dozens of people have been arrested as police attempted to halt thousands of anti-lockdown protesters marching through the centre of London.

Demonstrators trailed by police 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.

Scotland Yard said 36 people had been arrested by 6.45pm, most for breach of Covid regulations.

“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.”

Deputy assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor said "several" police officers were assaulted and injured, including by bottles and other missiles thrown from the crowd.

“Throughout the day, officers sought first to engage with people who had gathered toexplain that their actions were unlawful under the Covid-19 regulations, and encouraged them to go home to help protect themselves and others during this public health crisis.

“Where this approach did not work and officers were met with hostility, police enforced the regulations and made arrests.

“It is totally unacceptable and saddening that officers enforcing regulations that are there to protect us all were the victims of violent attacks.”

Similar demonstrations took place in Manchester as hundreds of people gathered outside the National Football Museum before marching to Greater Manchester Police’s headquarters claiming lockdown was a “crime”.

Read more

People march in a protest against the lockdown in Manchester on Saturday (Reuters)

• MPs and peers call on Priti Patel to lift lockdown ban on protests
• More than 700 legal scholars urge Boris Johnson to ditch plan for ‘draconian’ restrictions on right to protest
• Arrests as hundreds march through central London in third day of Sarah Everard protests
• New protest laws ‘go too far’ and are not needed, police commissioners say
• Public should be ‘really worried’ about new crackdown on right to protest, ex-police chief says

There were no reports of any arrests in Manchester, where separate marches by Black Lives Matter protesters and demonstrators against violence towards women also took place.

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.

Saturday’s clashes come a week after the Met faced criticism for its handling of a vigil on Clapham Common in memory of Sarah Everard.

The MPs’ letter said such “shocking scenes” were “entirely avoidable” if the government had provided guidance to police and ensured protests were clearly exempt from the ban on gatherings under lockdown.

It was addressed to home secretary Priti Patel and health secretary Matt Hancock, and was coordinated by Liberty and Big Brother Watch.

Signatories include the Tory MPs Sir Charles Walker, Steve Baker, Sir Christopher Chope and Sir Desmond Swayne and the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey.