Just Stop Oil activist group says to stop climate protest stunts

"It is the end of soup on van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets," the group said in a statement, claiming that it had succeeded in its initial aim to stop Britain approving new oil and gas projects.

Founded in 2022, Just Stop Oil rose to prominence after activists adopting the group's signature orange colours staged a string of headline-grabbing protests to raise awareness about the danger to the climate posed by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

The stunts included targeting paintings like Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" with tomato soup and daubing the megalithic standing stones at Stonehenge with orange paint powder.

"Three years after bursting on the scene in a blaze of orange, at the end of April we will be hanging up the hi vis (high-visibility vests)," the group said on Thursday.

"Just Stop Oil's initial demand to end new oil and gas is now government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history."

Since coming to power in July 2024, the UK Labour government has ended new oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea and closed Britain's last coal power plant.

Just Stop Oil said it would hold a final rally in London's Parliament Square on April 26, and "continue to tell the truth in the courts, speak out for our political prisoners and call out the UK's oppressive anti-protest laws".

Dozens of Just Stop Oil protesters have been arrested since the group's foundation and the group told AFP 15 were currently in jail.

Earlier this month, a court in London cut by one year a five-year jail term imposed on Just Stop Oil's 58-year-old co-founder Roger Hallam accused of conspiracy for planning to block the M25 motorway in an online call.
'A different approach'
Just Stop Oil confirmed its change of strategy in a call with AFP and said it was working on a new project, but did not provide details.

"As corporations and billionaires corrupt political systems across the world, we need a different approach," it said.

"We are creating a new strategy to face this reality and to carry our responsibilities at this time. Nothing short of a revolution is going to protect us from the coming storms."

Over the years the activists' stunts have drawn condemnation from politicians, police and some sections of the public.

"I'm sure ... plenty of members of the public will be happy to hear that they may be causing less disruption in the future," a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told journalists on Thursday.

He denied however that the government had handed Just Stop Oil "a win".

"We have been very clear when it comes to oil and gas that it has a future for decades to come in our energy mix," he said.

Will McCallum, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, defended the group's work.

"Just Stop Oil paid a heavy price for raising their voices at a time when politicians and corporations are trying to silence peaceful protesters -- in the streets and in the courts," he said.

"We must not allow our hard-won right to protest to be stripped away, because it is the right that all other rights depend upon."

In October 2022, two Just Stop Oil activists emptied cans of tomato soup over the glass protecting "Sunflowers". In November 2023, protesters smashed the screen covering a Diego Velazquez painting at the National Gallery in London with hammers.

The previous month, police arrested 62 climate activists in central London after they disrupted traffic with a "slow march" protesting Britain's oil and gas policies.