Liverpool police arrested eight environmental activists on Monday after they stormed Britain's only genetically-modified soya mill dressed as chickens.  The Greenpeace volunteers took staff by surprise when they arrived at the plant at Liverpool's Gladstone Dock which processes both GM and normal soya.

At around 8 a.m. sixty activists burst out of the back of four trucks driven into the dock through the main gate, Greenpeace said. A Liverpool Fire Service spokesman said specialist cutting equipment was used to free a number of protesters chained to equipment within the plant which is run by multinational company Cargill.

Three activists were still inside the plant while Port of Liverpool Police continued to monitor the situation on Monday evening. "The protesters are in a position where they cannot be reached to be arrested. All the police can do is continue to monitor the situation," a police spokesman said.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Louise Edge said the volunteers were camped in a small tent set up on the side of a forty-metre-high conveyor belt which transports soya from the silos to the crushing plant and planned to spend the night there.

Genetic modification of crops has aroused widespread opposition in Britain.