The police have been called to the prime minister’s Yorkshire home after four Greenpeace protesters climbed on to the roof and covered it in oil-black fabric.
Activists blanketed the home in Richmond, North Yorkshire, in protest at Rishi Sunak’s announcement this week backing more North Sea oil and gas licences.
Greenpeace climate campaigner Philip Evans said: “We desperately need our Prime Minister to be a climate leader, not a climate arsonist.
“Just as wildfires and floods wreck homes and lives around the world, Sunak is committing to a massive expansion of oil and gas drilling.
“He seems quite happy to hold a blowtorch to the planet if he can score a few political points by sowing division around climate in this country. This is cynical beyond belief.
“Sunak is even willing to peddle the old myth about new oil and gas helping ordinary people struggling with energy bills when he knows full well it’s not true.
“More North Sea drilling will only benefit oil giants who stand to make even more billions from it, partly thanks to a giant loophole in Sunak’s own windfall tax.”
A Number 10 source confirmed police are at Mr Sunak’s home.
The source said: “We make no apology for taking the right approach to ensure our energy security, using the resources we have here at home so we are never reliant on aggressors like (Vladimir) Putin for our energy.
“We are also investing in renewables and our approach supports 1000s of British jobs.”
Mr Sunak this week vowed to “max out” North Sea oil and gas by issuing hundreds of new development licences. The move was an apparent attempt to draw a dividing line with Labour, which has promised to stop issuing new licecnes in the North Sea if it wins power.
The PM said that even if the UK reaches net zero by 2050, “a quarter of our energy needs will come from oil and gas”.
And the PM insisted granting new oil and gas licences for the UK was “entirely consistent” with the UK commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
But Greenpeace and other environmental groups roudned on Mr Sunak over the new oil and gas licences, accusing ministers of “pouring fuel on the fire”.
Environmental think tank the IPPR said by planning to “max out” the North Sea the government had “abandoned any pretence of climate leadership”.
And Oxfam’s climate change policy advisor Lyndsay Walsh said the decision was “wrongheaded” and part of “the government’s hypocritical and dangerously inconsistent climate policy”.
Greenpeace earlier slammed the announcement as “a cynical political ploy to sow division”.
Even a Tory former energy minister said backing future oil and gas projects in the North Sea is “the wrong decision at precisely the wrong time” as countries around the world experience record heat waves.
Conservative MP Chris Skidmore said: “It is on the wrong side of a future economy that will be founded on renewable and clean industries and not fossil fuels.
