Skip to main content
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
JAILED: Eco-protesters support Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer as they are sentenced on September 27 2024 for throwing tinned soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery in 2022

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.
Morning Star call for advertising
More from this author
Us President Donald Trump waves to supporters from his limou
Features / 1 April 2025
1 April 2025
Bizarrely, Trump’s latest attacks now include the National Zoo, but his real and racist agenda is to strip everything black from the country’s cultural institutions, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
RESISTANCE: (Top)demonstrators at the University of Californ
Features / 25 March 2025
25 March 2025
That should be warning enough to end the company’s contract with the NHS, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
KH
Features / 22 March 2025
22 March 2025
The arrest of Palestinian activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil is just the beginning as the Trump administration moves to silence students and union members who support Palestine, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Al Green
Features / 12 March 2025
12 March 2025
Student Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest and threatened deportation are terrifying — but the moribund Democrats are still failing to mount any meaningful resistance against the slide toward autocracy, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Similar stories
Just Stop Oil supporters sit on the floor after throwing sou
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