Man climbs Palace of Westminster tower with Palestinian flag

Emergency services have been called to the Palace of Westminster, where a man has scaled one of the buildings carrying a Palestinian flag.

A barefoot man was seen standing on a ledge several metres up Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben.

The Met Police said officers were called to the tower at 07:24 GMT on Saturday.

“Officers are at the scene working to bring the incident to a safe conclusion,” the force said.

At least nine emergency service vehicles lined Bridge Street in central London and crowds looked on from beyond a police cordon.

At around 10:00 GMT, three emergency personnel were lifted several metres up on a fire brigade aerial ladder platform, with one person using a megaphone to speak to the man on the ledge.

The intruder said as he filmed his climb that he was protesting against “police repression and state violence”.

After he got into the grounds of Parliament, he walked up some steps, quickly climbed onto a railing, and up the side of Elizabeth Tower.

At one point he took his shoes off to enable him to climb higher to a ledge. He injured his feet, and patches of blood could be seen on the stonework of the tower.

The man was spotted within minutes by police on the ground, who asked if he was able to get down safely. He responded: “I’m safe.”

Photographs showed him sitting on the ledge with the flag and a keffiyeh scarf wrapped around the decorative stonework on the tower.

The man was still on the ledge when the platform was lowered at around 11:45 GMT.

Bridge Street, which is at the north end of Westminster Bridge, was closed to allow the emergency services to deal with the incident, police confirmed.

Westminster Bridge was also closed, the Met said.

It is understood one exit of Westminster Tube station is closed, but there is no disruption to Tube services and passengers can use other exits.

Tours of the Parliamentary Estate have been cancelled as emergency services respond to the incident.

The parliamentary spokesperson said: “Parliament takes security extremely seriously, however, we do not comment on the specifics of our security measures or mitigations.

“As a result of this incident, tours of the Parliamentary Estate today have unfortunately had to be cancelled.”

A spokesman for London Fire Brigade (LFB) said they were responding to the incident alongside the police.

Crews from Lambeth, Chelsea, Soho and Islington fire stations have been deployed, LFB said.

The London Ambulance added that it had sent an ambulance crew, an incident response officer, and members of its hazardous area response team (HART) to the scene.