Skip to main content
Advertise Buy the paper Contact us Shop Subscribe Support us
Who is really endangering art?
Just Stop Oil has been criticised for targeting the work of Van Gogh, but it’s inaction on climate that’s putting great paintings at risk, argues LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

ON the occasions when activists from Just Stop Oil have targeted works of art or historical landmarks, there has been an outcry, both from horrified onlookers at the time and later in the press and the courtroom.

The British government is intent on cracking down on protest, even if it’s an action intent on trying to save us all from the ravages of runaway climate chaos.

“They are pathetic, they are self-defeating, and they need to feel the full force of the law,” pronounced Keir Starmer of Just Stop Oil activists in June. “That is what will happen if we have an incoming Labour government.”

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Features / 18 January 2025
18 January 2025
After 46,000 dead and countless more from disease and starvation, Palestinians can celebrate a truce, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER, yet even as the Democrat and Republican leaders scramble to take credit, Israel continues killing
Features / 12 January 2025
12 January 2025
At the same time as they rushed to fight to save areas that were not their own, a bipartisan crackdown on immigration and a savage new law threatens the mass detention and deportation of Latin migrants, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Features / 24 December 2024
24 December 2024
…but whether globally or locally, each of us can take steps to achieve peace, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Features / 23 November 2024
23 November 2024
The veteran ocean defender, a founding member of both Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace, is under arrest in Greenland and faces extradition to Japan for protecting whales — but the world outcry isn’t there, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Similar stories
Features / 4 October 2024
4 October 2024
Just Stop Oil activists aren’t out to destroy art, they are here to save us. We should thank them not jail them, argues LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Features / 6 September 2024
6 September 2024
LINDA PENTZ GUNTER condemns Starmer’s willingness to let children go hungry and the elderly shiver while pouring billions into doomed nuclear projects that won’t address the climate crisis