A Just Stop Oil protester targeted 55 Tufton Street yesterday morning (October 25) by spraying the exterior with orange paint.
The protester said: "We're here today to fight #BigOil. Famine, pestilence, war — the people in this building don't care. They've got their snouts in the trough."
He added: "I'm just a normal guy from South London. I'm doing this for my kids and grandkids. Support Just Stop Oil."
He was joined by a group of activists from the same organisation who blocked Horseferry Road at the junction with Tufton Street in Westminster.
The protest came after activists coated the face of King Charles' waxwork at Madame Tussauds in cake on Monday, October 24.
Throughout the month of October, activists from Just Stop Oil have protested around the capital, with incidents including covering Van Gogh's Sunflowers painting in tomato soup, supergluing themselves to the copy of the Last Supper painting in the Royal Academy and climbing on top of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge.
But why has Just Stop Oil targeted 55 Tufton Street and what is the building used for?
Here's everything you need to know.
What is 55 Tufton Street used for?
The Georgian townhouse based on Tufton Street in Westminster, London, is owned by businessman Richard Smith.
Over the last few years, the townhouse has hosted the offices of a number of lobby groups and libertarian think tanks.
Among the groups is the climate-sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), whose stated aims are to challenge what it calls "extremely damaging and harmful policies" envisaged by governments to mitigate anthropogenic global warming.
The townhouse, like 10 Downing Street, has a black front door and has been associated with shaping British politics for the last 10 years.
Recently, political activist group Led By Donkeys posted a viral video in which a mock blue plaque was placed outside the address.
The plaque read “The UK economy was crashed here”, with the date as September 23, 2022.
This was when Kwasi Kwarteng announced his disastrous mini-budget, which later saw huge U-turns and caused the Chancellor to lose his role in the cabinet.
Angel Rayner, Labour's deputy leader, previously spoke to BBC Radio 4's The Other Black Door about Tufton Street.
She said: “55 Tufton Street shouldn’t have any more influence than any other street in the United Kingdom, and what seems to be happening here is that street seems to dominate particular policy and what’s happening in government and legislation, and it’s not transparent enough at the moment.”
Why have protesters targeted 55 Tufton Street?
Yesterday, a group of activists from Just Stop Oil targeted 55 Tufton Street as part of the next stage of protest action taking place throughout October.
According to its website, Just Stop Oil is a "coalition of groups working together to ensure that the government commits to ending all new licences and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK".
The organisation was founded in April 2022 with the group staging numerous protests since with organisers from Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion at the helm.
The group is demanding “that the UK government makes a statement that it will immediately halt all future licensing and consents for the exploration, development, and production of fossil fuels in the UK”.
The organisations website adds: “Allowing the extraction of new oil and gas resources in the UK is an obscene and genocidal policy that will kill our children and condemn humanity to oblivion. It just has to stop.
“If we continue down our current path, it will destroy families and communities. We will face starvation and the slaughter of billions of the poor – and the utter betrayal of our children and their future.
“Does our government get this? They are actively enabling the fossil-fuel industry through obscene subsidies and tax breaks for new fossil-fuel extraction.
“They are wasting billions supporting unicorn technologies, such as carbon capture and storage projects, which provide a fig leaf for business-as-usual to continue. There has been no rapid and sweeping social change, no widespread adoption of low-carbon technology, and no war-style mobilisation.
“The choice: rapid transition to a low-energy and low-carbon world, or social collapse. We can do it now, in an orderly manner – creating millions of proper skilled jobs and protecting the rights of workers in sunset industries – or we wait for the unavoidable collapse.”
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