McDonald’s offered Met police cheap burgers and free drinks during XR protests
McDonald’s restaurants offered the Metropolitan police cut-price burgers and free hot drinks during Extinction Rebellion protests – but senior officers warned staff not to “flaunt” it, documents show.
Franchises also granted liberal use of their toilets during the central London demonstrations. A police chief praised this in an internal email as a “convenient” deal that would “allow short breaks” for patrolling officers.
The correspondence, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, shows the Met said the restaurants offered its staff a discount on food at “about half price” during the October 2019 protests.
The force accepted a “very kind offer” of free teas and coffees, and accepted “exclusive” terms from individual franchises to use their premises after 11pm “whilst XR continues”.
The revelations come as Extinction Rebellion begins a four-day protest at parliament on Friday, calling on ministers to act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025 and an immediate end to all new fossil fuel licenses.
The emails show the drinks offer applied to six McDonald’s branches in central London. Two branches offered use of downstairs seating areas after 11pm, the emails show.
A missive from Ch Supt HelenHarper to Cmdr Karen Findlay says: “… the venue of these stores are convenient for the XR footprint and would allow short breaks hots [sic] drinks, toilets etc without officers needing to come back to the stations.”
Harper then told on-duty officers: “To try and offer you some additional support we have approached McDonald’s who have very kindly offered to provide officers free tea and coffees whilst XR continues … [I] have passed on my thanks to McDonald’s, please when you take advantage of their kind offer thank
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