Tank pulls up outside UK parliament to demand gyms stay open

Demonstrators parked a tank outside Parliament demanding that gyms be kept open during lockdown. 

MPs are voting on Boris Jonhson’s second lockdown rules today and protestors have parked a military style tank outside Parliament to urge the Government to keep gyms open over the upcoming month. 

If the vote is passed through Parliament today England’s second nationwide lockdown will begin tomorrow and end on December 2. 

Some people thought the tank demonstration was hilarious while others commented that it showed security was ‘slack’ and many people specified that it was a ‘self-propelled gun’ instead of a tank.

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Whether gyms would be closed this time was initially unclear in Boris Johnson’s statement announcing the lockdown, on October 31, but it was recently confirmed that gyms will have to close on a Government website. 

This is because of the Prime Minister’s ‘stay at home’ order which has said people in England can only leave their houses for specific reasons including education and work ‘if you cannot work from home’.

People are allowed to leave the house for exercise but it has to be outdoor exercise on their own, with their households or with one other person from another household. 

Over 500,000 people have signed a petition to keep gyms open over lockdown. The petition was started by Aneesa California, who runs California Fitness with her husband. 

Aneesa has said she will refuse to close her gym in east-Devon because the way that would affect her members’ mental health. 

She previously told Metro online: ‘Everything we do is around health, so why other health services are allowed to stay open and we’re not is a little confusing. 

‘The vote is not looking in our favour but we have every intention of keeping our doors open.’

She, and other gym-owners and gym-goers, believe that the physical and metal health benefits of exercise in a gym outweigh the fairly low rate of coronavirus transmission in her region. 

Gyms were closed for four months earlier this year when they were shut March, 23, and reopened on July, 25.

Gyms have already been closed in Wales and have stayed open in Scotland and Northern Ireland but only for individual training, not for classes. 

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