UK minister Mark Field suspended after ‘grabbing’ Greenpeace protester by neck
- Calls for Field to quit after news footage apparently showed him shoving a woman, grabbing her neck and pushing her out of a dinner event
- Minister claims he acted ‘instinctively’ and ‘grasped the intruder’ because he thought she may have been carrying a gun
UK Foreign Office Minister Mark Field was suspended from government after forcibly removing a female protester from a City of London dinner on Thursday evening.
Opposition politicians demanded Field should be fired after footage on social media showed him grabbing the woman, one of about 40 environmental protesters who interrupted a speech by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond. Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis told ITV that Field’s actions were “very hard to defend” and promised an investigation.
Field “will be suspended as a minister while there are investigations taking place,” Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokeswoman Alison Donnelly told reporters in London on Friday. The premier found the footage “disturbing.”
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is in the run-off with Boris Johnson to become the next Conservative Party leader and prime minister, told Sky News an independent inquiry from someone “with a cool head” would “reach the right conclusions.”
Field said he referred himself to the Cabinet Office for a ruling on whether he breached the ministerial code after campaigners from the Greenpeace group burst into the Egyptian Hall in Mansion House, where Hammond had just started his speech focusing on his legacy at the Treasury and Brexit.
“There was no security present and I was for a split-second genuinely worried she might have been armed. As a result I grasped the intruder firmly in order to remove her from the room as swiftly as possible,” Field said in a statement. “I deeply regret this episode and unreservedly apologise to the lady concerned for grabbing her, but in the current climate I felt the need to act decisively to close down the threat to the safety of those present.”
A video posted by ITV showed Field appearing to push the protester against a wall and grab her by the neck and forcing her out of the hall.