Just Stop Oil activist Phoebe Plummer speaks at Oxford University

Just Stop Oil spokesperson Phoebe Plummer, 21, from London, spoke last Thursday at the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University. 

The event was titled “How To Just Stop Oil. Start acting like life depends on it: civil resistance to climate chaos in 2023." 

In October 2022, she and Anna Holland threw a can of tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888), worth £76 million, at the National Gallery in London. 

They then glued themselves to the wall below the painting and Ms Plummer declared: "What is worth more, art or life?"

Afterwards in a video posted to Twitter, she claimed that they did "no damage to the painting whatsoever".

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She said there was "minimal damage" to the frame and that the group "never would have considered doing it" if the painting wasn't behind glass.

She also claimed the soup was reportedly "wiped off with a bit of kitchen roll."

At Southwark Crown Court the pair pleaded not guilty to criminal damage.

They were granted bail, ahead of their trial on July 22, 2024, on condition they do not enter the grounds of any galleries or museums.

They are also banned from having glue, any adhesive substances or paint in a public place as part of their bail conditions.

Receiving a warm welcome from Oxford University students and supporters of Just Stop Oil, she said:  “I had thought that climate change was a distance looming threat.  I thought that the grown ups had it all under control.” 

She said that after she realised it wasn’t under control: “It felt as if the world had fallen down around me. We might see the destruction of all we know and love. How would I be able to look a young person in the eyes and say that I didn’t do everything I could."

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She said of the Government's new Public Order Act which gave police greater powers to crack down on protest tactics such as those being used by climate protestors and resulted in arrests at the King's coronation: “It’s like something out of George Orwell’s 1984.” 

A 27-year-old PhD student at Oxford, who did not wish to be named, said on Thursday night: “Oil companies try to buy us. As an undergraduate at Cambridge, I had a lab coat with a BP logo on it.  It was entirely normal to get Shell sponsorship when organising a conference.” 

Speaking at the event, Daniel, 21, a student at Oxford University said: “3.5 billion people on the move sounds like something in a sci-fi movie but that’s what we’re facing unless we act now”.