BP or not BP?

The British Museum are about to renew their deal with oil giant BP: We MUST stop them.

This. Is It. The British Museum’s current 5-year deal with BP is coming to an end – but the British Museum’s management have been holding private talks with BP about signing a new sponsorship deal. 

Join us on Saturday April 23rd for a mass creative action at the British Museum to say: Make BP History! Email info@bp-or-not-bp.org or message us here with the words “Drop BP” and we’ll send you more details. Please also share this callout far and wide!

By siding with BP, the British Museum is on the wrong side of history.

There can be no new oil. There can be no more delay. There can be no more BP sponsorship at the British Museum.

It’s time to Make BP History.

We can’t let the museum sign a new deal with an oil giant in the middle of a climate crisis. The world’s scientists have issued their ‘bleakest warning yet’ of the impacts of unchecked carbon emissions. BP has been raking in record profits from rising energy prices while millions struggle with rising bills. We’re in the middle of a huge debate about the role of oil and gas in funding and stoking war and conflict. If the museum signs a new BP sponsorship deal, that would send the worst possible signal to the world about the role of fossil fuels in society right now.

Join us on April 23rd to stop the museum’s Director from backing death, destruction and climate breakdown by renewing the BP sponsorship. Please message us here or email info@bp-or-not-bp.org ASAP if you might want to join, as we’ll need to book enough (free) museum slots for everyone to attend.

In the last six years, at least FOURTEEN cultural institutions in the UK have dropped their deals with oil giants thanks to tireless campaigning. In just the last two months, the National Portrait Gallery, Scottish Ballet and New Scientist Live have all ended their BP deals. It’s time for the British Museum to follow suit.

Join us at the museum as we say: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. No new BP deal. No new drilling. No more oil-funded regimes. It’s time for a future beyond the chaos of war and climate catastrophe. It’s time for a future beyond BP.

On Saturday April 23^rd 2022 – the 10th anniversary of our first ever action – we will meet to stand firm against fossil fuels in our cultural institutions and across our society. At the start of Spring, in the shadow of the BP-sponsored Stonehenge exhibition, we will welcome in the dawning of a better future. A future of renewables not BP renewal. A future where museums end their colonial practices and move beyond their neocolonial sponsors. 

Join us and together let’s get BP out of the British Museum once and for all.

Why is BP sponsorship such a big deal?

BP doesn’t sponsor cultural institutions out of the goodness of its heart. Its philanthropic image is a carefully curated marketing scheme, designed to distract from its appalling environmental and human rights record, its decades of funding brutal autocrats (including Vladamir Putin) and its huge contribution to climate change.

From covering up oil spills which harm oceans and animals, to dodgy deals with dictators and warmongers, BP has done it all. The company’s history is inseparable from colonial oppression and its endless quest for fossil fuels has wreaked international havoc for more than 80 years. 

This sponsorship deal at the British Museum doesn’t just give BP a false veneer of respectability. It allows the company to use this publicly funded space to throw fancy events, schmooze with UK government officials, and cosy up to representatives of fossil-fuelled regimes from Egypt to Azerbaijan to – yes – Russia.

It’s time to end this deal.

Save the date for our mass creative action to Make BP History on Saturday April 23^rd at the Museum. To find out more or to sign up, email us at info@bp-or-not-bp.org or via our website (bp-or-not-bp.org/contact), with the words ‘Drop BP’. 

Please also share this callout on social media or via your own networks – thanks so much!