Extinction Rebellion stages protest inside Hastings Barclays bank

The environmentalist group said the protest was part of a number of demonstrations at more than 100 Barclays branches across the UK that took place on Monday.

XR Hastings & St Leonards said police were called to the Hastings branch but no arrests were made and protestors decided to end their occupation after bank staff closed the branch early at 3pm.A spokesperson for XR Hastings & St Leonards said: "We think Barclays customers deserve to be informed and many of them thanked us for letting them know that Barclays is Europe's biggest funder of fossil fuel projects."

A Barclays spokesperson said: “We are determined to play our part in addressing the urgent and complex challenge of climate change. In March 2020 we were one of the first banks to set an ambition to become net zero by 2050, across all of our direct and indirect emissions, and we committed to align all of our financing activities with the goals and timelines of the Paris Agreement.

"We have a three-part strategy to turn that ambition into action: achieving net zero operations, reducing our financed emissions, and financing the transition. In practice, this means we have set 2030 targets to reduce our financed emissions in four of the highest emitting sectors in our financing portfolio, with additional 2025 targets for the two highest-emitting sectors - energy and power. We have also provided more than £80bn of green financing and we are investing our own capital, £175m, into innovative, green start-ups.”