Climate protesters target UK's ruling Tories for second day running

LONDON — Demonstrators targeted the general election campaign of the UK's ruling Conservatives again Wednesday, with a Greenpeace activist climbing atop the party's "battle bus" to unfurl a banner demanding clean energy.

Greenpeace UK said its activist Amy Rugg-Easey staged the stunt, while the campaign bus was parked in Nottinghamshire in central England, to protest the Tories' "persistent failure to tackle the climate and nature crises".

The NGO noted a joint analysis of the main parties' election manifesto plans for climate and nature, conducted this week with Friends of the Earth, placed the Conservatives "rock bottom".

"We've had enough of this government lurching from one scandal to the next, while gambling with our future," Rugg-Easey said in a statement released by Greenpeace following the stunt.

On Tuesday police arrested four people, believed to be from protest group Youth Demand, for suspected trespassing after they entered the grounds of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's property in northern England.

The group — whose key demands include curbing UK fossil fuel extraction — posted a video on social media showing a young man defecating into what it said was a lake on Sunak's property.

"The country is a shitshow, but it goes beyond just the Tories, to the entire political system," an activist called Oliver who claimed to be responsible for that stunt said in another video posted online Wednesday.

Sunak's home was also targeted last year, when Greenpeace activists covered it in oil-black sheets to protest against the Conservative government's decision to grant new oil and gas drilling licences.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, a 28-year-old man pleaded guilty to a public order offence after targeting Nigel Farage, the leader of the hard-right Reform UK party, as he campaigned on his battle bus earlier this month.

Josh Greally was arrested in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, after throwing a coffee cup and another item at Farage on June 11.

Neither of the objects hit the politician, who was on the bus's top deck.

Greally will be sentenced for the offence on August 28, with the judge hearing the case warning him that "all sentencing options are open".