In a stunt on Thursday morning, a group of XR protesters stationed themselves on top of an out-of-commission fire engine outside the Treasury in Westminster, London, ready to unload 1,800 litres of fake blood.

What followed was nothing short of carnage, but not of the building, of the activists themselves. The fake blood spray was so powerful that the activists immediately lost grip of the hose, sending the red liquid shooting erratically over the pavement and on the people who brought it. The protesters were seen running around as they failed to bring the hose under control.

XR activists later managed to complete the stunt, but the group has conceded that it went far from smoothly.

This is the last thing we wanted to happen.

The calamitous stunt has inspired many on social media to take brutal pot shots at the environmental movement, such as advising them to check hose attachments as “apparently they can be temperamental.” Others joked that this was a “visual representation of how well Brexit is going.”