Climate protestors who threw soup at two Van Gogh paintings last month have been banned by a judge from protesting in London. The dictate comes as Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists have carried out a series of peaceful protests across the U.K. over the last week, despite a recent letter from museum directors demanding that environmental groups stop targeting artworks as part of their demonstrations.
Yesterday, Mary Somerville, 77, Stephen Simpson, 71, and Phil Green, 24, pleaded not guilty in a London court to two counts of criminal damage. They were charged for allegedly damaging the frames of two Sunflowers painting by Vincent Van Gogh on view at the National Gallery after throwing tomato soup at them in an act of protest on September 27.
The Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists were released on bail and their case will go to trial in January 2026. In the meantime, Judge Alexander Milne has barred them from participating in any protest action within the M25, a major highway encircling most of Greater London.
Three Just Stop Oil activists throw soup at two of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings at the “Lovers and Poets” exhibition at the National Gallery in London on February September 27. Photo: Just Stop Oil.
The defendants’ lawyer Raj Chada said this ban was a “disproportional” infringement on their right to protest since London is “the seat of government,” according to a BBC report. Milne countered that, “there seems to be a great deal of blurring between the exercise of that right and the commission of criminal offenses.”
Meanwhile, JSO has launched a series of peaceful interventions across the U.K. by adorning public statues in orange high-vis vests bearing the activist group’s logo. This morning, activists dressed up a bronze statue of Nelson Mandela in London’s Parliament Square. A demonstrator held a sign bearing the anti-Apartheid activist’s famous quote: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
“People say it’s impossible to Just Stop Oil, but we would argue it always seems impossible until it’s done. What choice do we have?,” said a JSO spokesperson in a statement. “The system is broken and we cannot rely on these or any other politicians to save us. We need revolution in how we make decisions, empowering ordinary people to decide their own futures through citizen-led assemblies.”
Just Stop Oil supporters dressed a statue of statue of Nelson Mandela in London’s Parliament Square in a high-vis vest. Photo courtesy of Just Stop Oil.
The group noted that London’s Parliament Square, which is full of monuments to some of Britain’s most influential political figures, will be the site of a “Politics is Broken” protest on November 2, as part of Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s National Palestine March.
The first public sculpture to be targeted in the latest high-vis vest campaign was a bronze rendering of the Beatles in their hometown of Liverpool on October 24. Activists held speech bubble–shaped placards next to the the figures stating “Hey Jude, let’s Just Stop Oil” and “imagine there’s no oil.” Both lines referenced famous song lyrics by the music group.
In a further effort to relate the statues they are targeting to current environmental concerns, another group of JSO activists dressed a statue of Demeter, the Ancient Greek goddess of agriculture, with a vest and a sign stating “Just Stop Famine” at the British Museum on October 25.
Just Stop Oil supporters dressed a statue of the Greek goddess Demeter at the British Museum in a high-vis vest. Photo courtesy of Just Stop Oil.
JSO has a history of demonstrating at museums, leading to a consortium of U.K. museum directors to issue an open letter earlier this month, imploring the activist group to stop attacking their art. Somerville, Simpson, and Green’s action at London’s National Gallery’s “Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers” exhibition in September was a direct response to the sentencing of two other JSO activists, who had also thrown soup on one of the same Sunflowers paintings in 2022. Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were handed hefty prison sentences by Southwark Crown Court earlier that same day.
Other works that have been targeted include John Constable’s The Hay Wain and Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, also at the National Gallery. Early in October, two JSO activists who glued themselves to a J.M.W. Turner painting at Manchester Art Gallery were spared jail time after a judge at Manchester Magistrates’ Court ruled that the pair were not guilty, and their action was proportionate in the face of the climate crisis.
