Just Stop Oil considers slashing famous artworks as it threatens to ‘escalate’ protests
Just Stop Oil demonstrators are considering slashing famous works of art as they threaten to “escalate” their protests.
The controversial climate activists have also issued a call to England captain Harry Kane to wear an armband carrying their message at the World Cup in Qatar.
The group is planning more disruption in the run-up to Christmas in its campaign of direct action, which has included blocking roads, spraying orange paint on buildings and defacing famous artworks.
Among the protests, demonstrators have thrown soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting and glued themselves to the frames of several masterpieces, prompting one art critic to brand them “morons”.
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Soup thrown over Van Gogh painting
Alex De Koning, a spokesman for Just Stop Oil, said it was “insane” that “more people are outraged” about the activists targeting artwork than the devastating floods in Pakistan, which displaced millions of people.
The 24-year-old – who describes himself as a “climate scientist” – told Sky News that the protest group may follow in the footsteps of suffragettes who “violently slashed paintings in order to get their messages across”.
In 1914, Mary Richardson attacked Diego Velazquez’s painting The Rokeby Venus with a meat cleaver in a protest against the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst.
Later that year, suffragette Anne Hunt entered the National Portrait Gallery and hacked away at a painting of Thomas Carlyle, one of the gallery’s trustees.
Mr De Koning said targeting famous art had “marked an escalation” in Just Stop Oil’s action and warned it will “continue to escalate unless the government meets our demand” to stop future gas and oil projects.
He told Sky News: “If things need to escalate then we’re going to take inspiration from past successful movements and we’re going to do everything we can.
“If that’s unfortunately what it needs to come to, then that’s unfortunately what it needs to come to.
“We’re fighting for our lives, why would we do any less?”
Asked directly whether future protests could involve slashing artwork, the spokesman replied: “It could potentially come to that at one point in the future, yeah.”
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Oil protesters glued to masterpiece
‘Not intimidated by jail’
Two Just Stop Oil activists, Hannah Hunt and Eden Lazarus, are due to face trial on Tuesday accused of causing criminal damage to John Constable’s The Hay Wain.
The pair glued themselves to the frame of the painting and attached their own image of an “apocalyptic vision of the future”.
Last week, a Just Stop Oil protester was jailed for gluing himself to the frame of a Van Gogh painting in a London gallery.
A judge said the 18th-century frame had been “permanently damaged” by the stunt, as Louis McKechnie was imprisoned for three weeks and fellow activist Emily Brocklebank received a 21-day sentence, suspended for six months.
Louis McKechnie and Emily Brocklebank glued themselves to the painting. Pic: Just Stop Oil
Mr De Koning said Just Stop Oil activists were “not going to be intimidated by potential prison time”.
“At least in prison you get three meals a day and shelter and water,” he said.
“In 20 years’ time, who knows if that’s still the case for millions of people.”
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Mashed potato thrown on Monet painting
Why are protesters targeting art – and are they gaining support?
Climate activists have been targeting famous artworks around the world in recent months.
In Germany, demonstrators threw mashed potatoes at Monet’s Les Meules painting in a protest against fossil fuel extraction.
And in Australia, two climate activists were arrested after gluing themselves to the frame of Picasso’s Massacre in Korea.
After Just Stop Oil activists threw soup at the Van Gogh painting, art critic Waldemar Januszczak branded the stunt “pathetic”.
“Take it out on the oil companies you morons, not on innocent art,” he wrote on Twitter.
However musician and activist Bob Geldof voiced his support for the protesters, saying their actions were “1,000% right” and it was “clever” to deface the famous 1888 painting while it was covered with a glass screen.
Mr De Koning said the stunt had “sparked international conversations” and the protests targeting artworks were “probably” more effective than blocking roads.
“It really got a lot of people talking about the climate crisis in a way that other protests in the past have not done,” the PhD student at Newcastle University said.
“We’ve tried protesting outside the Chinese embassy and doing other things and it just doesn’t get coverage.
“Because there was no damage (to the Van Gogh painting), there was a lot of support that actually came out as well as a lot of controversy.”
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Just Stop Oil: ‘Do you love your children?’
Who is organising the worldwide art protests?
Mr De Koning refused to say who first suggested climate protesters should target works of art, saying he couldn’t discuss it for “legal reasons”.
The groups involved, including Germany’s Last Generation and Just Stop Oil in the UK, operate independently and no one person is believed to be directing the actions.
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Activists target Klimt painting
According to TIME, clinical psychologist Margaret Klein Salamon is perhaps the closest thing to a global mastermind of the protests.
She is the executive director of a group called The Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), which distributes money from wealthy donors to “support disruptive protest”.
She told the magazine that the CEF does not fund anything illegal with its grants, which generally range from $35,000 (£29,000) to $80,000 (£67,000).
But Ms Salamon added that disruptive protests are like a fire alarm to “shake us awake”.
“Playing by the rules, going step by step through normalcy, we’re walking off a cliff,” she said.
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Activists dragged away after gluing themselves to painting
Just Stop Oil considers ‘new tactics’
Asked whether the activists felt any guilt over defacing art, Mr De Koning said: “It’s obviously terrible. Yes, of course, we don’t want to be doing things like that.
“The question you need to be asking is why on earth would students, grandparents, engineers, doctors, nurses, do something like that? It’s because our government is behaving criminally.”
He added that if action isn’t taken to stop new oil and gas projects then “millions more people are going to die and can’t appreciate that artwork”.
Protesters glue their hands to the frame of a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper
“We’re not even going to have a habitable planet for this artwork and for us to live on,” Mr De Koning said.
The Just Stop Oil spokesman confirmed more disruption is planned in the run-up to Christmas, saying it would be “mostly road blocking” but it was “always good to have new tactics”.
The group has said it will stop its direct action if the government announces it will immediately halt all future licences for the exploration and production of fossil fuels in the UK.
Read more:
Who are Just Stop Oil?
Just Stop Oil ‘should be named a terrorist group’
Call for Kane to wear Just Stop Oil armband
Just Stop Oil has now urged Harry Kane to wear a captain’s armband displaying its message at the World Cup in Qatar, which has one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves.
Kane was due to wear a OneLove armband in support of the LGBT+ community at the World Cup – with homosexuality illegal in Qatar – but England abandoned the plan after FIFA threatened to book players who wore it.
Mr De Koning said: “A lot of people really respect Harry Kane… so a lot of people would be swayed by (him wearing a Just Stop Oil armband).”
The spokesman pointed out that Gary Lineker tweeted a message about Just Stop Oil after a protester disrupted a Premier League match and Formula One star Lewis Hamilton defended the activists after they invaded the Silverstone track during the British Grand Prix.
“These people have such a platform they can use so I would ask them to consider their responsibilities to future generations and do something as simple as put on an armband,” the Just Stop Oil spokesman said.
“It’s not going to make a massive difference to (Kane’s) everyday life but it could have a great effects for people down the line.”
Robert Jenrick has defended being handed a £75,000 donation from a company which had received money from a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), despite criticising Labour over the freebies row.
Questions have been raised over the ultimate source of the funds from The Spott Fitness, which gave Mr Jenrick three separate £25,000 donations in July.
As first reported by Tortoise Media, the company received a loan from a firm based in the BVI.
The Tory leadership contender told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that The Spott Fitness “as I understand it… is a fitness company that operates in the UK”, and the donation was “perfectly legal and valid”.
Politics Live: Tory leadership candidates faced questions on Sky News
Mr Jenrick spoke to Sky News alongside the three other rivals to replace Rishi Sunak, as the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham kicks off.
During the interviews, Kemi Badenoch said she is a fighter and if someone takes a swing at her “I will swing back”.
Meanwhile, Tom Tugendhat defended his “posh boy public school background”, saying his military service has given him leadership skills, while former home secretary James Cleverly refused to name any of the previous four Tory prime ministers as being to blame for the party’s general election defeat, saying the public “don’t like infighting”.
Jenrick says donations ‘valid’
Asked about the donations from The Spott Fitness, which have been declared on his MPs’ register of interests, Mr Jenrick said: “As I understand it, this is a fitness company that operates in the UK.
“It’s a perfectly legal and valid donation under British law and we’ve set it out in the public domain in the way that one does with donations.”
Pressed for details on who owns the company and who works for it, the former immigration minister said this would be set out “on Companies House in the normal way” and he has “obviously met people who are involved in the company”.
“What people are criticising Labour for is actually rather different,” he added.
“Labour are being criticised for their rank hypocrisy that they spent years complaining about other political parties and then they’ve chosen to take off donors and cronies and to give passes to Number 10 in response.”
The Labour Party Conference in Liverpool last week was overshadowed by a donation and freebies row, after it emerged Sir Keir Starmer accepted over £100,000 in gifts since 2019.
Starmer has been criticised for accepting freebies. Pic: Reuters
Questions have been raised in particular over the large amount given by Labour peer and TV executive Lord Alli, who had a pass to Number 10 for a short time in order to attend meetings, the government said.
The Conservatives are now gathering in Birmingham since their worst defeat at the ballot box in history at the July general election.
Robert Jenrick speaks to Trevor Phillips
Jenrick backs ‘cast iron cap’ on migration
Mr Jenrick, currently the frontrunner to replace Mr Sunak, said his party made “serious mistakes” and failed to deliver.
He is pitching himself as a “change” candidate, telling Trevor Phillips he would take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR) in order to get the failed £700m Rwanda asylum scheme up and running, and introduce a cap on migration.
He said this would be different from previous commitments to introduce a limit as the cap would be “legally binding… cast in iron”, with the number set “in the tens of thousands or lower”.
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‘I will swing back’
Badenoch: ‘If you swing at me I will swing back’
Mr Jenrick faces competition on the right from Kemi Badenoch, the former equalities minister.
Speaking to Phillips, she defended an Op-ed in The Daily Telegraph in which she claimed there was a rise in the number of migrants coming to the UK who “hate Israel”.
She said she was not referring to all Muslim immigrants “but there are some, those who buy into Islamist ideology, political Islam, they do not like Israel and we need to be able to distinguish between the two”.
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The combative shadow housing secretary also insisted she does not go looking for fights when asked about her rows with the likes of Doctor Who star David Tennant, but that she will stand up for herself.
The North West Essex MP said: “I will not stand there and let people punch me. If you swing at me I will swing back but I don’t look for fights.”
She added: “I am something that is just different and unique and that is why I stand out in this contest.”
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‘People have seen my faults’
‘Public don’t like bickering’
All four leadership contenders will make their case at the party conference this week, before another round of voting by MPs will reduce them to the final two, which the party membership will then vote on.
Mr Cleverly, who got the least votes of those remaining in the previous round, said his various cabinet roles in the past few years meant he has spent “more time promoting other people’s ideas” rather than his own – but that shows he is a “team player”.
He declined to name a prime minister who he blamed most for the party’s 2024 defeat but added: “I’ll tell you what the public told me they didn’t like – they didn’t like the constant infighting, they didn’t like the bickering.”
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Need to be ‘tough’ on Iran
Mr Tugendhat asked the public to judge him on his own record, rather than his public schooling.
“I think that decisions I have made for the last 35 years demonstrate the character that you are looking at,” he said.
“I have chosen consistently to serve our country. I have put myself on the frontline in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
An eight-year-old boy has died after sustaining “serious” injuries to his head and face after being shot at a farm.
Cumbria Police said they are investigating the incident, and said they were called to the farm – in the Warcop area – at around 2.50pm on Saturday.
They said they received “a report that a child had been seriously injured by a firearm at the property” and that police and North West Ambulance Service attended.
“The firearm was secured at the scene by police and an eight-year-old boy was taken to hospital by air ambulance having suffered serious and life-threatening injuries to his head and face,” they said.
“Sadly, the boy has died overnight.”
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Cumbria Police added officers arrested a man in his 60s at the scene on suspicion of assault GBH.
“He remains in police custody but is now under arrest on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter,” they said in a statement.
UK
Rosie Duffield ‘never thought’ she would quit Labour – but says Sir Keir Starmer ‘has problem with women’
Former Labour MP Rosie Duffield has said she never thought she would leave the party “in a million years” and suggested the prime minister has a “problem with women” after her resignation.
The Canterbury MP, who submitted a scathing resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer on Saturday, told the BBC she is “desperately sorry” to those in her constituency who voted for Labour.
“It’s not at all where I wanted to be. I never thought in a million years I would leave this party,” she told the broadcaster late last night.
“I’m trying not to get upset… it’s in your soul and your heart, particularly someone like me.
“I’m from a very different background to Keir Starmer. I was a single mum who needed the Labour Party.
“It’s just so profoundly disappointing as a Labour voter and activist and a former recipient of tax credits in a low-paid job to see this is what we’ve become.”
Read more
Rosie Duffield resignation letter in full
Letter is savage and most scathing to PM
Starmer freebie row about class – not corruption
Her resignation letter to the prime minister said she was “so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party”.
In the interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Duffield was asked if she thought Sir Keir “has a problem with women”.
She replied: “I’m afraid I do. I’ve experienced it myself.”
The now-independent MP said she and other female Labour backbenchers refer to “the young men who surround” Sir Keir as “the lads”.
“It’s very clear that the lads are in charge,” she added.
“They’ve now got their Downing Street passes and they’re the same ones briefing against me in the papers and other prominent female MPs.”
Her resignation letter specifically criticised Sir Keir’s treatment of Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbott as “deeply shameful” after her long-term suspension.
Reacting to Ms Duffield’s resignation on Sky News, Labour minister Pat McFadden said he “regrets” her decision, but added: “It’s probably not a secret that she’s been unhappy for some time.”
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PM defends £20k donation from Lord Alli
On questions of “sleaze” that relate to Sky News revelations of the prime minister receiving more freebies than any other MP, he said he “wouldn’t characterise it in the way that Rosie has” and that there was “no public money involved”.
He also said he is “not ashamed of the party” and that “government is always tough” in light of Labour’s decision to cut winter fuel payments for thousands of pensioners.
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Starmer ‘hasn’t actually explained’
Ms Duffield told Kuenssberg Labour’s three months in power has been “mass hypocrisy” she “can’t be part of”.
“It’s greed,” she said. “Why else would someone on so much more money than most people get free gifts? He can absolutely afford his own clothes – we all can.”
She said Sir Keir “hasn’t answered” or “actually explained” the situation.
In response to the revelations on his donations, he said: “Wherever there are gifts from anyone, I’m going to comply with the rules.
“It’s very important to me that the rules are followed. I’ve always said that. I said that before the election. I reinforced it after the election. And that’s why shortly after the election, my team reached out for advice on what declarations should be made so it’s in accordance with the rules.
“They then sought out for further advice more recently, as a result of which they’ve made the relevant declarations.”
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