UK Edition
Insulate Britain protesters have blocked the M25 on Monday morning, despite being threatened with imprisonment if they returned to the motorway under a temporary government injunction.
Activists from the group formed a roadblock on the slip road at Junction 14 near Heathrow, causing disruption on the motorway for the sixth time in just over two weeks.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that a total of 53 demonstrators have been arrested after they arrived at around 8am and were moved to the verge.
Angry drivers got out of their cars and berated the protesters, with one woman telling demonstrators she was "trying to feed my kid".
Met Police said that lanes have reopened at the scene and that some activists had used super glue to "frustrate our response".
The group, an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, is calling for the Government to insulate homes in the UK to help cut carbon emissions.
Their controversial tactics have led to National Highways being granted injunctions to prevent people obstructing the M25 and A20 following further demonstrations at the Port of Dover on Friday.
The injunction prohibits people from blocking, endangering, slowing down, obstructing or otherwise preventing the free flow of traffic on the busy motorway.
'We won't tolerate reckless behaviour'
The legal action came after members of the environmental group ran into moving traffic on the M25 last week.
Grant Shapps also announced legal moves for a second injunction on Friday, after the group targeted HGV drivers and blocked the entrance to the Port of Dover for more than two hours.
The Transport Secretary said: "We won’t tolerate reckless behaviour on motorways or ports. I’m therefore seeking a further injunction to prevent this disruption.
"Living in a democracy, everyone is entitled to protest, but that doesn’t extend to closing roads and ruining livelihoods."
The new protest comes amid a warning from Matthew Scott, the police and crime commissioner for Kent, who said that the Government needed to go further than reactive injunctions limited to specific roads.
He said that emergency legislation needed to be introduced, specifically designed to protect critical infrastructure.
'We are going nowhere'
Insulate Britain spokesperson Liam Norton said: "You can throw as many injunctions at us as you like, but we are going nowhere.
"You can raid our savings and confiscate our property. You can deny us our liberty and put us behind bars. But that is only shooting the messenger.
"The truth is that this country is going to hell unless you take emergency action to stop putting carbon into the air."
'We have certainly got everybody talking'
Speaking on LBC on Monday morning, Insulate Britain activist Tracey Mulligan said: "We have certainly got everybody talking about insulation or avoiding the question of insulation.
"We have got people considering that our government is legally failing in their duty to protect us and I think we're showing that Priti Patel, unfortunately, is trying to scare us with an injunction and that shows her lack of character, not ours.
"You can't put an injunction on hunger, you can't put and injunction on physics, and we are terrified for our children's future and sick of over 8,000 people dying each year from the choice of heating or eating."
When asked about breaking the injunction, she said: "I wouldn't say we are happy, we are just putting things into the bigger context.
"We are tired of over seven million people having to choose between heating or eating and we know that's going to get worse with the energy crisis that we're facing now."