Activists scale Rishi Sunak’s roof to protest against oil drilling expansion

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Environmental activists have scaled the roof of Rishi Sunak’s home to protest against the British prime minister’s recent backing of an expansion of oil and gas drilling in the UK’s North Sea.

Four Greenpeace activists covered one side of his £2mn luxury mansion in the English county of Yorkshire with 200 sq m of black fabric on Thursday morning, and unfurled a banner on the lawn that read: “Rishi Sunak — Oil Profits or Our Future?”

The government decision to “max out” hydrocarbons in the North Sea has been fiercely criticised and is viewed by many campaigners as an abandonment of the UK’s net zero policies. 

Philip Evans, Greenpeace UK’s climate campaigner, said: “It’s time for Sunak to choose between Big Oil’s profits or our future on a habitable planet.”