Environmental activists from the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement took time out of fighting climate change to lose a battle with a fire hose charged with firing fake blood at the UK Treasury building.
In a stunt on Thursday morning, a group of XR protesters stationed themselves on top of an out-of-commission fire engine outside the Treasury in Westminster, London, ready to unload 1,800 litres of fake blood.
Extinction Rebellion's plan to spray 1,800 litres of fake blood on the treasury did not get off to the best start pic.twitter.com/c2WYHM2Tuc
What followed was nothing short of carnage, but not of the building, of the activists themselves. The fake blood spray was so powerful that the activists immediately lost grip of the hose, sending the red liquid shooting erratically over the pavement and on the people who brought it. The protesters were seen running around as they failed to bring the hose under control.
XR activists later managed to complete the stunt, but the group has conceded that it went far from smoothly.
This is the last thing we wanted to happen.
The calamitous stunt has inspired many on social media to take brutal pot shots at the environmental movement, such as advising them to check hose attachments as “apparently they can be temperamental.” Others joked that this was a “visual representation of how well Brexit is going.”
Yes but always check the hose attachments, apparently they can be temperamental 😜
XR disrupted London with 11 days of protests in April, which it said was the biggest act of civil disobedience in recent British history. Iconic locations such as Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge were blocked, the Shell building defaced, and the London Stock Exchange targeted, with activists gluing themselves to the building.
