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Phoebe Plummer

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Phoebe Plummer
Born (2001-09-26) 26 September 2001 (age 23)
London
Education
OrganisationJust Stop Oil
MovementClimate activism
Criminal statusIncarcerated

Phoebe Plummer (born 26 September 2001) is a British climate activist. Initially inspired by a United Nations report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they[a] joined Just Stop Oil in August 2022 and were arrested three times in their first week. An October 2022 protest, in which Plummer and Anna Holland threw tomato soup at a Vincent Van Gogh Sunflowers painting at London's National Gallery, caused worldwide outrage and £10,000 damage to the frame but emboldened activists to carry out similar actions. Plummer was sentenced the following month for blocking the M25 motorway. In November, Plummer and other activists caused tailbacks on multiple roads in West London with a slow march protest, for which they faced the first jury trial under section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023.

Plummer was arrested after delivering a letter to Emily Thornberry MP in March 2024, though subsequently delivered a letter to Wes Streeting MP to the wrong address. They was convicted of "interference with key national infrastructure" and criminal damage in May and July 2024. Shortly after the second conviction, Plummer was arrested for defacing departure boards at Heathrow Airport. They were sentenced to 3 and 24 months in prison for both their convictions two months later, and appealed the latter in January 2025.

Life and career

Early life and Sunflowers protest

Plummer was born on 26 September 2001[b] and has two older brothers.[4] Plummer is queer and non-binary[5] and uses singular they pronouns.[1] Plummer grew up in Chelsea in London and attended St Mary's School Ascot for three years[6] before obtaining A-levels in Chemistry, Computer Studies, and Maths at Mander Portman Woodward College in Kensington.[4] After reading a 2019 United Nations report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,[2] Plummer went vegan, stopped flying, and bought only second-hand clothes. They later began signing petitions, writing to members of parliament, and participating in marches.[4] Plummer spent a short period reading maths and computer science at the University of Manchester but dropped out after suffering a climate-related mental health crisis.[2] They later transferred to the School of Oriental & African Studies in London[4] to study social anthropology.[6]

"I had a turning point this summer when in the UK, we reached 40 degrees. And as we shattered records for the hottest summer on record, I think something else shattered in me. And it was a belief that I've held for my whole life, which is that surely the grownups had it all under control. And you know, as our headlines were filled with stories of reaching temperatures that they didn't predict that we would see until 2050. I realized quite the opposite was happening, that we were hurtling in the wrong direction. I realized the grownups didn't have it under control. The grownups had sat on the knowledge of the consequences of burning fossil fuels for the last 50 years. The grownups were quite happily signing me and my generation up to a future that's filled with storms, wildfires, droughts, crop failures, famine, and war. And I realized that nobody was coming to save us." [sic]

Plummer in an interview in March 2023[5]

In July 2022, after temperatures reached 40 °C (104 °F) in some parts of England,[2] they started non-violent direct action.[5] Around this time, Just Stop Oil started a campaign of rolling roadblocks and protests, which Plummer signed up for in August[2] after feeling as though they had made all the individual lifestyle changes they could make.[6] Within a week, they had been arrested three times, twice for disabling pumps at petrol stations. In October 2022, at a roadblock in Trafalgar Square, Plummer became friends with Anna Holland, a Just Stop Oil member originally from Newcastle upon Tyne. Holland had been struck by Plummer's confidence, outfit, and bright pink hair.[2]

On 14 October 2022, Plummer and Holland entered London's National Gallery, threw Heinz tomato soup at the painting Sunflowers, glued themselves to the wall, and demanded to know whether art was worth more than life, food, and justice.[7] The acid in the soup left permanent pale streaks on its frame and caused damage estimated by the gallery to be worth £10,000.[2] The protest caused worldwide outrage, though some were assuaged by the fact that the painting was behind glass and was itself unharmed,[6] and the pair received significant queerphobic abuse from social media and right-wing newspapers following the incident.[8] Plummer and to a lesser extent Holland became the organisation's most recognised faces[2] and their actions inspired several subsequent climate activists to throw food at paintings around the world.[8] Both Plummer and Holland were arrested for the incident. After being released on bail,[6] they took the Tube to a safe house while still wearing their prison uniforms. The pair were covertly photographed laughing during the journey and these images were later sent to a tabloid, sparking further press outrage.[2]

Later activity and slow march protest

Two weeks later many Just Stop Oil activists blocked the M25 motorway, causing four days of disruption. Some were jailed at HM Prison Bronzefield as a result. Plummer shared a cell with another Just Stop Oil member and regularly encountered other M25 protesters.[4] In an interview with Damian Whitworth of The Times published in July 2024, Plummer stated that they had received "hot food, shelter, clean clothes, [and] warm blankets" in prison, all of which "millions in the global south" had already lost to climate change.[6] Plummer later posed for Dazed in summer 2023, for which they had 'Stop Oil' written on their chest, held a can of Heinz tomato soup, and wore a silk and cotton sweater by Loro Piana.[4]

On 15 November 2023, Plummer, Chiara Sarti, and Daniel Hall mounted a slow march protest as part of a Just Stop Oil campaign that called for the government of the United Kingdom to stop issuing new licences for oil and gas exploitation. Their campaign, which took place along Earls Court Road, caused long tailbacks which extended to Cromwell Road and the Hammersmith flyover, causing several hours of traffic disruption.[9] For this, Plummer and Sarti were held on remand for 18 and 19 days respectively.[10] In March 2024, Plummer was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to burgle and of sending malicious communication after attempting to deliver a letter to Emily Thornberry MP. Later that month, after attempting to deliver a letter to Wes Streeting MP, Plummer was mocked by Streeting, who tweeted that they had not even got the right borough.[11] In April 2024, while wearing an ankle tag, they gave an interview to Tipping Points, a podcast by a student at Imperial College London.[4]

Plummer's November 2023 protest was litigated in front of a jury in May 2024, becoming the first such trial under section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023. Co-defendant Sarti was represented by a lawyer, but Plummer and Hall represented themselves. The trial took place during unusual heat in the courts and several sessions ended early.[9] All the defendants were convicted that month of "interference with key national infrastructure".[9] In July 2024, Plummer and Holland were convicted by Judge Christopher Hehir of causing criminal damage for their tomato soup protest and warned to expect prison. Plummer and another activist were arrested five days afterwards for spraying paint at departure boards at Heathrow Airport;[12] a trial in January 2025 resulted in a hung jury and was rescheduled for May 2026.[13]

On 27 September 2024,[3] in spite of an open letter coordinated by Greenpeace and Liberate Tate imploring him to do otherwise,[14] Hehir sentenced Plummer to two years for their tomato soup protest and three months for their slow march,[3] prompting activists from Last Generation to throw soup at the Embassy of the United Kingdom, Berlin, and similar protests to take place outside the British embassies in Amsterdam, Paris, and Rome.[15] Hehir’s sentencing was criticised by George Monbiot[16] and Nadya Tolokonnikova,[17] though Celia Walden was less sympathetic.[15] In January 2025, Plummer, Holland, and fourteen other jailed Just Stop Oil activists challenged the lengths of their sentences at the Court of Appeal;[18] their appeal was supported by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth,[19] and the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst,[20] although Lord Walney criticised the appeal.[21]

Notes

  1. ^ Plummer uses they/them pronouns.[1]
  2. ^
    • For September 2001, see [2].
    • For 27 September, [3].

References

  1. ^ a b Marshall, Alex (27 September 2024). "Just Stop Oil Activists Sentenced for Attack on Van Gogh Painting". New York Times. Archived from the original on 2 October 2024. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Mathiesen, Karl (2 October 2024). "The climate protesters who threw soup at a van Gogh painting. (And why they won't stop.)". POLITICO. Retrieved 4 October 2024.
  3. ^ a b c Gayle, Damien (27 September 2024). "Just Stop Oil activists throw soup at Van Gogh's Sunflowers after fellow protesters jailed". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Norton, Jim (1 August 2024). "'My dad is a climate denier': The Just Stop Oil poster girl who went from private school to prison". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 26 September 2024. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
  5. ^ a b c Bonvik-Smith, Dickon (10 April 2023). "Lessons From Civil Resistance With Phoebe Plummer". Communicating Climate Change. Archived from the original on 10 April 2023. Retrieved 3 October 2024.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Whitworth, Damian (29 July 2024). "'We're not criminals': what Just Stop Oil's poster girls told me". The Times. Retrieved 1 October 2024.
  7. ^ Boyle, Louise (17 October 2022). "Climate protesters hit Van Gogh's Sunflowers with soup. Were they right?". The Independent. Retrieved 8 October 2024.
  8. ^ a b Wakefield, Lily (29 December 2022). "Climate activist who threw soup at Van Gogh urges LGBTQ+ people to take stand". PinkNews. Archived from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  9. ^ a b c Gayle, Damien (15 May 2024). "UK climate activists convicted in first trial of new anti-protest laws". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  10. ^ Gayle, Damien (8 May 2024). "First trial of Just Stop Oil activists under new anti-protest laws begins". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  11. ^ Barton, Alex (27 March 2024). "Just Stop Oil poster girl bungles letter stunt by failing to find Labour frontbencher's house". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 14 July 2024. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  12. ^ Rufo, Yasmin (27 September 2024). "Just Stop Oil protesters jailed for throwing soup on Sunflowers". BBC News. Archived from the original on 30 September 2024. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  13. ^ "A jury has failed to reach a verdict in the trial of two Just Stop Oil protesters who were detained after T5 Heathrow departure boards were doused with paint". Radio Jackie. 16 January 2025. Retrieved 28 January 2025.
  14. ^ Gayle, Damien (26 September 2024). "Artists plead for activists who threw soup on a Van Gogh to be spared jail". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  15. ^ a b Walden, Celia (30 September 2024). "Soup-throwing protests only happen because we indulge Just Stop Oil's moral toddlers". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 4 October 2024.
  16. ^ Monbiot, George (1 October 2024). "As the waters rise, a two-year sentence for throwing soup. That's the farcical reality of British justice". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
  17. ^ Tolokonnikova, Nadya (3 October 2024). "Van Gogh is turning in his grave at the harsh Just Stop Oil sentence. I know, because I spoke to him". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 4 October 2024.
  18. ^ "Just Stop Oil activists acted 'out of sacrifice', court hears". BBC News. 29 January 2025. Retrieved 29 January 2025.
  19. ^ Gayle, Damien (29 January 2025). "Sixteen jailed UK climate activists to appeal against 'unduly harsh' sentences". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 29 January 2025.
  20. ^ "Just Stop Oil protesters gain support of suffragette relative". BBC News. 29 January 2025. Retrieved 29 January 2025.
  21. ^ Taylor, Dan (13 January 2025). "'Silly' - Lord Walney blasts jailed activists as appeal looms". The Mail. Retrieved 29 January 2025.
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