Albanians in flash cars grind central London to standstill
Albanians in flash cars grind central London to a standstill: Police battle to move on dozens of drivers blasting their horns and blocking traffic as they toast Independence Day back home
Hundreds of Albanians took the streets of London in flashy cars overnight to celebrate their country’s independence day.
Video footage shared online shows a Lamborghini, Mercedes, Audis, Range Rovers and Porsche 4x4s all bringing traffic around Westminster to a standstill as Metropolitan Police officers attempt to move the vehicles on.
In various clips, men and women can be seen waving the Albanian flag while hanging out of the windows of their cars and blowing airhorns.
Elsewhere, cars performed wheel spins while young women donned traditional dresses and danced in the street.
The images sparked fury with motorists, with some branding the celebrations as ‘selfish’
Albanian people bring disruption to central London as they celebrate Independence Day by honking car horns and blocking traffic on Monday night
Loud firecrackers were let off while the long line of vehicles beeped their horns continuously to celebrate Albania’s independence, which is commemorated on November 28 each year.
The small European nation became independent on that date in 1912, just 110 years ago.
MailOnline has contacted the Met for comment.
The images sparked fury with motorists, with some branding the celebrations as ‘selfish’.
One Twitter user fumed: ‘Albanians in London celebrating their Independence Day selfishly blocked the Strand and Trafalgar Square, as people were coming out of the theatres at 10pm.
The small European nation became independent on that date in 1912, just 110 years ago.
Video footage shared online shows Mercedes, Audis, Range Rovers and Porsche 4x4s bringing traffic around Westminster to a standstill as Metropolitan Police officers attempt to move the vehicles on
A Mercedes performs a wheel spin as part of Albanian Independence Day celebrations in central London
Young women donned traditional dresses and danced in the street
Albanians ride in the back of an Audi convertible while celebrating their country’s independence in London
‘The traffic was horrible, an hour’s delay.’
Another added: ‘One of the reasons it took me ages to get home yesterday’, while one driver warned: ‘Don’t go down town the traffic is a nightmare.’
Others defended the Albanians after Twitter users commented on the number of luxury cars.
One wrote: ‘Couple of fancy cars here but the majority look pretty ordinary to me (a lot of mid range new cars just look like that these days).
‘Central London is hardly going to be demographically representative of Albanians in Britain as far as wealth goes either.’
It comes after figures revealed this week showed Albanians accounted for just over a third of people detected crossing the English Channel in small boats in the first nine months of this year.
Police speak to Albanian motorists as they celebrated in central London on Monday night
Police attempting to move on hundreds of cars with Albania flags around Westminster Bridge
A man draped in an Albanian flag stands atop a white Range Rover as two women lean outside the passenger windows
The traffic sparked fury with motorists, with some branding the celebrations as ‘selfish’
It is a sharp increase on previous years, with only 3% of arrivals in 2021 being of Albanian nationality, and just 1% in 2020.
In the three months from July to September, 45% of small boat arrivals were Albanian (9,076) and on some days the figure was as high as 80%.
A greater mix of nationalities have been detected making the crossing in recent years, the Home Office said.
Iranians accounted for the majority of arrivals in both 2018 (80%) and 2019 (66%).
But since 2020 arrivals from countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea have become more common while the number of Albanians has “increased substantially” this year.
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