Environmental activists have sprayed almost 3,500 pints of fake blood outside Her Majesty’s Treasury in London.

Extinction Rebellion used an out-of-service fire engine to spray the ‘blood’ before holding up a banner reading ‘stop funding climate death’.

At one point the hose spraying the red liquid lost control, spraying some of the activists in the face as it snaked across the road in front of the government building in Westminster.

Extinction Rebellion London live streamed a video from the treasury, with one demonstrator saying: ‘This is symbolic to show the government that the UK has blood on their hands.’

The water is made from water mixed with food dye and can be easily washed from the building, the demonstrator said.

Extinction Rebellion said that as well as the 1,800 litres of fake blood they also sprayed the words ‘stop funding climate death’ on the walls of the building.

Ben, one of the activists involved, said: ‘The Treasury has been frustrating efforts by other government departments to take action against climate change because it cares only about economic growth.

‘It doesn’€t see that eternal economic growth leads to climate death. The red symbolises the people dying now in the global south and also the people who are going to start dying from climate change all around the world if we do nothing.’

A spokesman for the group said: ‘It is time to imagine a future where humans no longer cause irreparable harm to themselves and their surroundings, but recognise and support the interconnectedness of life in its broadest sense.’

The group said today’s protest was held ‘to highlight the inconsistency between the government’s insistence that the UK is a world leader in tackling climate breakdown, while pouring vast sums of money into fossil exploration and carbon-intensive projects’.

It is planning an International Rebellion in four days time in more than 60 cities around the world, during which Extinction Rebellion will ‘highlight the need for a regenerative world’.

One of the protesters seen standing on top of the fire engine is retired Bristol university lecturer and grandfather of four Phil Kingston, 83, the group said.

Mr Kingston has been arrested a number of times for demonstrating with the group. Today he is joined by retired GP Diana Warner, 60, musician Cathy Eastburn, 52, Forest school leader Árainn Hawker, 48, ex-Buddhist teacher Mark Ovland, 36, and electrician Liam Norton, 34.

Mr Kingston said: ‘I fight with all my being for my four grandchildren in this situation of existential danger. And I am a Christian who cares for the Earth as God’s Creation; and for the world’s poorest peoples whose experience of injustice draws a special love from God.

‘I come to the Treasury to challenge these practices and to demand radical change in them. In particular the proposal of the Climate Change Committee that UKEF works towards zero emissions by 2050 is far too late. Greta Thunberg stated to the United Nations on 23 September that the CO2 budget for giving a 67 per cent chance of staying within 1.5C will be entirely gone by 2028 at current emissions levels.’

Extinction Rebellion’s International Rebellion starts on October 7, with the group planning to block 12 areas around Westminster.

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