Just Stop Oil activists to stop climate protest stunts: ‘the end of soup on van Goghs’

British environmental activist group Just Stop Oil said on Thursday it would halt its high-profile climate protest stunts after a final demonstration in London in April.

“It is the end of soup on van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets,” the group said in a statement, claiming that it had succeeded in its initial aim to stop Britain approving new oil and gas projects.

Founded in 2022, Just Stop Oil rose to prominence after activists adopting the group’s signature orange colours staged a string of headline-grabbing protests to raise awareness about the danger to the climate posed by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

The stunts included targeting paintings like Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers with tomato soup and daubing the megalithic standing stones at Stonehenge with orange paint powder.

“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 [high-visibility vests],” the group said on Thursday.

“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.”