Fossil Free Warwick join British Museum protests

Lobbying group Fossil Free Warwick (FFW) joined the national occupation of the British Museum on Sunday 13 September as an act of opposition against renewing their sponsorship deal with petroleum giant BP.

Campaigners from Warwick joined 15 other groups to engage in protest through banner drops, performance and singing. The Great Court of the British Museum became the setting of a flashmob of 100s of activists, all protesting BP’s sponsorship of public cultural institutions, generally in the UK.

FFW is a branch of People and Planet’s Fossil Free campaign to pressure universities and colleges to stop investing in and accepting funding from the fossil fuel industry.

The coalition of groups have been targeting four British cultural institutions, including the National Portrait Gallery and the Tate galleries, due to their involvement in a 2011 deal with BP.

It is wrong to profit from the wreckage” – People and Planet

The British Museum has had a sponsorship deal with BP since 1996 and has reportedly generated many financial benefits for the institution. It has received an average of £596,000 a year, which is roughly 0.8% of the museum’s annual income, from BP sponsorship in the 2000s.

Demonstrators aimed to put pressure on the Museum’s management to break its ties with BP. Their reasoning is that BP is responsible for fuelling climate change and is the cause of arguably the worst off-shore oil disaster in history, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It is also a company which has been taken to court and faced accusations of human rights abuses of alleged complicity in kidnap and torture.

Fossil Free Warwick, Divest London and Fossil Free King’s College London joined together for a simultaneous banner drop in the Great Court of the British Museum protesting the alleged destruction of the environment for profit.

The groups are also campaigning for universities and other public institutions to stop investing in coal, oil and gas companies.

Do you want companies to spend [their profits] in a way that benefits the public or not?” – Neil MacGregor

Earlier this year, British Museum director Neil MacGregor was reported as saying in the Guardian: “What would you want companies to do with their profits? Do you want them to spend them in a way that benefits the public or not?”

According to the same report, Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota asked whether protestors would rather BP gave up its charitable activity, adding that: “Those people who campaign should be perhaps looking at money which goes to other causes should be called into question.”

Connor Woodman, co-coordinator of Fossil Free Warwick, told the Boar: “BP is a rogue company that invests millions in developing new sources of oil every year, despite the desperate imperative to rapidly halt fossil fuel development.

“BP’s continued expansion demonstrates its pathological drive to destroy the planet, and our public institutions should have no part in facilitating a positive image for such a company.”

Photo: Fossil Free Warwick

Previously, after two years of FFW campaigning, Warwick University Council passed a motion pledging to switch from investing in oil, coal and gas companies to a fossil free investment fund at the earliest opportunity.

Fossil Free Warwick will be launching a campaign in the new academic year against the presence of BP on campus as the next step of a broader campaign against fossil fuels industries.