‘No regard for this country’s history’: Mobs force Metropolitan Police to put statues of Winston Churchill, Admiral Nelson and Robert Peel on danger list as possible targets for damage
- The dossier was compiled in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020
- Scotland Yard listed the bronze statue as being a possible target for damage
Memorials commemorating the war dead and Sir Winston Churchill were included on a secret police list of ‘contentious’ statues after being targeted by activists, it has emerged.
Scotland Yard compiled the dossier of central London landmarks deemed potential targets for protesters in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Documents uncovered by the Policy Exchange think-tank revealed that the police feared the Cenotaph on Whitehall – the focal point of Remembrance Day services for more than 100 years – was ‘scalable’.
And they listed the bronze statue in nearby Parliament Square of Churchill as being a possible target for damage.
Tories last night condemned ‘idiot’ protesters, whose actions have previously caused authorities to board up at-risk landmarks.
Scotland Yard compiled the dossier of central London landmarks deemed potential targets for protesters in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Documents uncovered by the Policy Exchange think-tank revealed that the police feared the Cenotaph on Whitehall – the focal point of Remembrance Day services for more than 100 years – was ‘scalable’
A statue of Admiral Horatio Nelsonat the Trafalgar Square in London
Nicholas Soames, Conservative veteran and Churchill’s grandson, said: ‘Certainly insofar as the Cenotaph is concerned, one could hardly believe that would be targeted by the protesters, and in terms of the Churchill statue, obviously I deeply regret it if people feel they want to protest there, but that matters less than the memorial to Britain’s war dead.
‘But we now live in this world where nothing is held as valuable, which is very sad.’
Tory MP Nigel Mills said: ‘These are marks of our freedom and democracy that the police should be protecting, not planning on how to cover up. It is fair enough if they have got a plan where these idiots are going to strike, but they should not be labelling them contentious – they are national heroes.’
Colleague Bob Stewart, a former Army colonel who served in Northern Ireland and Bosnia, said: ‘I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that we have people in our country that do not honour the fact that people in the past have given their lives to this country, in pursuit of their right to protest.’
Former Conservative minister Sir John Hayes said he sympathised with the police for having to draw up the ‘contentious’ list, but said having to do so was ‘a case of the deepest sorrow’. He added: ‘They [protesters] have no regard for our country’s proud history and no comprehension of the leadership displayed by the likes of Churchill.
Tories last night condemned ‘idiot’ protesters, whose actions have previously caused authorities to board up at-risk landmarks
Among those convicted after the disruption was BLM activist Astrophel Sang, 19, who was filmed trying to set fire to a Union flag atop the Cenotaph
‘Of course the guilt-ridden woke bourgeoisie couldn’t see them for what they were.’
Whitehall has long been a focus for protest. Churchill’s statue was infamously defaced by anti-capitalist demonstrators in 2000.
More recently it became a flashpoint for both BLM and far-Right campaigners in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by US police.
Among those convicted after the disruption was BLM activist Astrophel Sang, 19, who was filmed trying to set fire to a Union flag atop the Cenotaph. Also on the police list were memorials for India’s Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson and Metropolitan Police founder Sir Robert Peel.
The list, uncovered in a Freedom of Information Act request, was included in emails at the time of the 2020 protests, where senior officers were discussing ways to protect the statues.
The Met said it ‘was highlighting for policing purposes those which were considered contentious by individuals and groups who may have sought to damage them’.
The list forms part of the Policy Exchange’s report into the area around the Palace of Westminster. It says the area ‘has declined into a degree of squalor and disorder’.
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