Hundreds of frustrated holidaymakers and motorists have criticised a group of Black Lives Matter activists who staged a protest on a key road approaching Heathrow airport.
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A number of people have been arrested, said London’s Metropolitan Police.
Bishop Dr Joe Aldred said: “Whatever one may think about the nature of the protest and the blocking of roads, which is obviously to catch attention, we’d be best put going back to, what is the reason for this?”
Heathrow says it’s not aware of passengers missing flights because of the protest.
Similar protests disrupted traffic on major roads throughout the country during morning traffic, including the Birmingham airport and a main thoroughfare in Nottingham.
A spokeswoman for the West Midlands police department said four women and one man had been arrested so far on suspicion of obstructing the highway and failing to comply with Section 14 of the Public Order Act.
Two teenage boys recently opened fire on police officers, but their parents are blaming the Black Lives Matter movement for their sons’ actions. The shooting sparked nationwide riots.
Footage of the protest near Birmingham airport showed police officers pulling demonstrators away from the middle of the road.
Black Lives Matter protesters caused simultaneous “gridlock” on the M4 motorway at Heathrow and in Nottingham, in a day of anti-racist activism.
I Voted Leave tweeted, “UK branch of Black Lives Matter ruining thousands of people’s holidays to draw attention to an issue which does not exist in the United Kingdom”.
Terming the platform a “profoundly disturbing development”, JCRC announced it would “dissociate” itself from Black Lives Matter.
The group this week called for a “nationwide shutdown” to mark the August 5, 2011 killing of 29-year-old Mark Duggan, shot by police in the London neighborhood of Tottenham.
“We take action because justice has not been delivered through conventional means: the police, the IPCC, the courts or the legislature”.
A 2014 inquest into his death found Duggan was lawfully killed, even though he did not have a gun in his hand at the moment he was shot.
Later crowds gathered in east London where the families of people who have died in police custody addressed the crowd, each sharing stories on their long fight for justice.
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Police said a number of people have been arrested at Heathrow and holidaymakers face traffic disruption.
