ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

Activists from the Extinction Rebellion group caused a stir in the House of Commons as they stripped off while MPs debated Brexit.

Some protesters from the climate change group glued themselves to the front of the public gallery, and they all left little to the imagination.

The Met Police said 12 arrests had been made for outraging public decency.

“Parliament just got a little more nuts,” Conservative MP James Heappey tweeted.

It came as Labour's Peter Kyle opened the debate for his motion in Monday's indicative votes.

"This Parliament has rejected [Theresa May's] deal again and again: 1,067 votes against this deal," he told the House.

After the protesters made their presence known, he continued his speech with the words: "The naked truth is, Mr Speaker..."

And when a colleague made a point of order, he added: "I am grateful for the cheeky intervention..."

"He is fleshing out his argument very well," Tory MP Justine Greening interjected.

MPs were seen taking a glance up at the protest and Speaker John Bercow maintained that the debate on the second stage of the Brexit alternatives would proceed despite the distraction.

Tory Nick Boles, also speaking during the nude protest, made a joke that his Brexiteer colleagues were "noted naturists".

"It has long been a thoroughly British trait to be able to ignore pointless nakedness, and I trust the House will be able to return to the issue that we are discussing," he added.

Some protesters, who had phrases including "climate justice now" and "eco collapse" painted on their bodies, glued their hands to the glass panel in the gallery.

Two of the group wore full grey body paint and elephant masks.

Police officers were forced to remove them, with soap spray required in some cases to peel the activists from the glass.

Extinction Rebellion has staged huge demonstrations in London over recent months, often bringing busy roads and bridges to a standstill.

It describes itself as a non-violent direct action and civil disobedience group, and said the latest protest was an attempt to draw the attention of politicians to the "climate and ecological crisis".

The body paint and elephant masks were used "to bring the message that politicians neglect of the climate crisis has become an elephant in the room", a spokeswoman added.

Protester Savannah, an English literature student from Ladbroke Grove, said: "Everyone stripped and two people were elephants and had climate crisis written on them.

"We were pointing at them as the elephants in the room of the Brexit debate."

Oliver Baines, 68, a retired charity director from Cornwall, said he was protesting to put climate change higher up the agenda.

"This is a greater national crisis than Brexit," he added.

It comes with the Commons set to vote on four alternative plans on Monday evening, designed to establish what kind of Brexit has a chance of winning a majority among MPs.