British environmental activist group Just Stop Oil has announced they will end their current campaign of civil resistance after a final protest in Parliament Square, London on 26 April.
‘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. We’ve made fossil-fuel licensing front page news and kept over 4.4bn barrels of oil in the ground, while courts have ruled new oil and gas unlawful’, said the group in a statement, adding that ‘it is the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets’. However, ‘this is not the end of civil resistance’, they claim. The group state that it is currently creating a new strategy to resist and confront policies that will result in 3°C of warming, the predicted point of no return.
Created in 2022, Just Stop Oil frequently made headlines for their attention-grabbing campaigns, including gluing themselves to a Turner painting in Manchester in 2022, twice souping Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in 2022 and 2024, and spraying orange cornflour on Stonehenge in 2024.
There are currently seven Just Stop Oil activists in prison serving sentences of up to four years, eight on remand and sixteen more due to be sentenced in the next few months.
