The Just Stop Oil protests cost the Metropolitan Police £7.5m

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said “enough is enough” as Metropolitan Police figures obtained by the PA news agency showed the daily cost of working with environmental activists reached £630,000 last autumn.

The force said the money “could be better used” to tackle “priority crime” in local communities.

Just Stop Oil caused huge disruption with supporters climbing the M25 motorway platform and the QEII Bridge in DartfordKent, as well as blocking major roads in London.

They also sprayed orange paint on various buildings in the English capital and staged high-profile protests at the National Gallery, Madame Tussauds and Harrods.

Some activists have changed tactics, holding slow marches on major roads in London and other cities to avoid arrest for blocking the highway.

The £7.5m cost to the Metropolitan Police, revealed in response to a Freedom of Information request, covers a total of nine weeks from October 1 to November 14 and November 28 to December 14.

It includes expenses for officers and employees scheduled to be on duty, overtime bills and vehicle expenses.

More than 13,600 police shifts were involved in responding to the Just Stop Oil protests during this time.

Ms. Braverman said, “Enough is enough. Freeway blockages and slow moving roads are delaying our emergency services, preventing people from getting to work and draining police resources.”

Metropolitan Police Commander Karen Findlay, who leads the public order force, said the protests required “police and money that could be better used in local communities to tackle priority crime”.

She continued: “Every day that Just Stop Oil came out, we had to be ready to respond to their actions.

“When we saw them committing a crime, we dealt with it quickly.”

Figures from the Metropolitan Police show that 755 protesters were arrested on suspicion of offenses such as obstructing a highway, causing criminal damage and conspiracy to disturb public order.

Approximately 184 of these arrests have so far resulted in charges.

Ms Findlay said: “We are determined to work with the Crown Prosecution Service to bring charges against anyone who has caused suffering to the public through their unlawful actions.

“Everyone has the right to protest, but some of their activities were not protests, they were outright criminality to disrupt London, which we should have responded to effectively.”

Force bosses said in December that because Just Stop Oil was not involved in planning the protests, they always had manpower on hand, distracting hundreds of officers from their day-to-day duties.

A spokesman for the National Police Chiefs’ Council said the protests could require “a significant amount of planning work and resources for the police”.

He continued: “Often officers have to work hours away from their main roles and there can be many investigations arising from the protests which will affect their workload.”

Just Stop Oil is campaigning for the government to stop all new licenses and permits for fossil fuel exploration and production in the UK.

Spokesman Graham Bass, who said he took part in several “sanctioned” demonstrations last year and was not arrested, called the cost of policing the group “proportionate” given the billions of pounds spent worldwide on “climate change adaptation”. .

He added: “People are already dying because of the climate crisis. This is a very serious problem indeed.

“Overall, the cost of preventing it is far less than the cost of ignoring it.

“We are the fire alarm in the room, the canary in the mine.

“If the government was doing its job, we wouldn’t be there.”

The government is trying to toughen laws on protests through a public order bill that has been heavily criticized by civil liberties advocates.

Ministers have suffered a series of defeats on the legislation in the House of Lords this week, and peers will vote on the government’s serious breaches amendment on Tuesday.

Ms Braverman said: “Our Public Order Bill provides appropriate penalties for a small minority who use guerrilla tactics to force the public to buy out under the guise of ‘protest’.

“After listening to the police, we need to clarify what constitutes a serious breach of the law so that officers can take much quicker action to protect the public and prevent daytime congestion on our roads.

“I urge colleagues in the House of Lords to pass this measure – it is our duty to stand up for the law-abiding public and protect their right to go about their business.”