Black Lives Matter demonstrators block access to Birmingham Airport and the NEC

Motorists on the A45 Coventry Road struggled to get through for about two hours this morning



Demonstrators belonging to the Black Lives Matter movement halted traffic around Birmingham Airport.

Motorists on the A45 Coventry Road struggled to reach the airport and the National Exhibition Centre for about two hours from 7am on Friday.

Drivers were advised to avoid the area while police negotiated for the group to leave the carriageway.

A number of people were reported to be lying in the road.

It was finally cleared at about 9am and traffic was able to flow freely again.

Five people were arrested for obstructing the highway.

A spokesman for West Midlands Police said: ""The A45 in Solihull has now been cleared.

"Five people have been arrested for obstructing the highway and will spoken to in due course."

The M4 close to Heathrow Airport and a tram system in Nottingham was also blocked by a nationwide Black Lives Matter campaign.

A previous demonstration took place two weeks ago in Birmingham city centre.

The movement has spread to the UK from the US following the killing of a number of black Americans by US police.

Thursday was the fifth anniversary of Mark Duggan being shot dead by police in Tottenham, North London, which prompted widespread protests across the capital and in other cities including Birmingham, between August 6 and 11, 2011.

A post on the Black Lives Matter UK Facebook page on Thursday said: “Five years ago today we lost one of our family.

"Five years later the community remembers. Justice 4 Mark.”

Hardly the way to get sympathy for your cause is it, causing mayhem on major roads.

I'd like to hope those arrested receive appropriate fines, but I'm realistic enough to know that they'll only get a slap on the wrist.

ethnic minorities are still more likely to be in poverty .

Perhaps you should visit the job centre some time and take a good look at how they drive up in their top of the range cars dress in their top designer clothes shoes and expensive phones compared to our kids which I ve seen my self while waiting for my .daughters to be seen.

As for living in poverty I think quite a few like my self born and bred here in Coventry know more of living in poverty. Try living off £14. 50p per week bringing up 2 young children having to pay £5.00 rent plus your bills feed 2 kids and cloth them and your self and buy school uniforms also trying to keep a house warm that has no roof on it no bathroom no inside toilet in 1977.
In all these houses I see on TV of the so called poverty ethnic s I see they can afford plugs on their phones and other electrical equipment while I use to have to plug the wires of my vac , iron etc into the wall from a plug attached to my hair dryer as I could nt afford to buy plugs .