Just Stop Oil activists throw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers masterpiece

Just Stop Oil activists have thrown tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers masterpiece at the National Gallery in London. 

Two women walked into the room at the Trafalgar Square gallery at around 11am this morning, where they threw the contents of two tins of Heinz tomato soup over the painting, which has an estimated value of £72.5m.

In the video, the women then appeared to glue one hand to the wall below the painting, before one shouted: “What is worth more? Art or life?

“Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice?”

The activist, understood to be Phoebe Plummer, twenty-one, continued: “The cost of living crisis is driven by fossil fuels. Everyday life has become unaffordable for millions of cold hungry families, they can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup.

“Meanwhile, crops are failing and people are dying in supercharged monsoons, massive wildfires and endless droughts caused by climate breakdown.

“We can’t afford new oil and gas, it’s going to take everything. We will look back and mourn all we have lost unless we act immediately.”

The campaign group has claimed responsibility for the incident, with them writing on Twitter: “BREAKING: SOUP THROWN ON VAN GOGH’S ‘SUNFLOWERS’. 

“Is art worth more than life? More than food? More than justice?  The cost of living crisis and climate crisis is driven by oil and gas.”

The group, which campaigns against the government’s fracking manifesto, said in a statement its actions this month have been timed to coincide with the planned launch of a new round of oil and gas licensing.

They said: “We will not be intimidated by changes to the law. We will not be stopped by private injunctions sought to silence peaceful people.

“Our supporters understand these are irrelevant when set against mass starvation, slaughter, the loss of our rights, freedoms and communities.”