By Catherine Nicholls, CNN
Climate change protesters with the Just Stop Oil group have thrown cans of soup at a Van Gogh painting. Photo: Supplied / Twitter
The UK climate activist group Just Stop Oil announced that it will end disruptive acts of protest, which have included throwing soup on Vincent Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers', smashing the glass protecting the Magna Carta and spraying orange powder paint on Stonehenge.
"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," the group said in a statement in a reference to Just Stop Oil's frequent use of fluorescent orange safety vests.
They are planning "one final action" in London's Parliament Square on 26 April, after which they "will not be taking action under the Just Stop Oil banner", a press officer for the group told CNN.
Just Stop Oil's initial demand was to "end new oil and gas," which is now government policy, the group said. In early March, the British government confirmed that it has committed to issue no new licenses to explore new oil and gas fields.
Because of this, Just Stop Oil said it has kept more than 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground and become "one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history".
It will now be using a "different approach" to fight against what it called "a morally bankrupt political class" as global temperatures rise.
The climate group quickly rose to prominence after it was formed in 2022, protesting in a range of headline-grabbing ways, such as invading the track during a British Grand Prix and climbing onto gantries over a major London highway.
Some of the activists who took part in the highway protests received multi-year jail sentences.
Photo: Just Stop Oil via AP
Just Stop Oil is not the first climate group to declare an end to disruptive direct action.
Extinction Rebellion, which was also known for its attention-grabbing tactics, announced in 2023 it would stop its more divisive form of activism. in order to build its numbers and become a more inclusive organisation.
The decisions come in the context of tighter anti-protest laws that have made political and environmental activism more difficult, as well as evidence that disruptive protests were increasingly unpopular.
"We feel there's now this space where we can try something different and perhaps be a place especially for people from backgrounds where arrest is something extremely frightening," Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Marijn van de Geer said at the time.
As for Just Stop Oil's future, the group is "creating a new strategy to face the reality of runaway global heating, mass death, economic collapse, and rising fascism," a press officer told CNN.
"Nothing short of a revolution is going to protect us from the coming storms," they said.
- CNN
