Man, 38, is arrested after Winston Churchill statue is sprayed with ‘zionist war criminal’ slogans
- Did YOU see the incident? Email [email protected]
Pro-Palestine activists have defaced former British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill’s statue in Westminster.
Slogans including ‘Zionist war criminal’, ‘Stop the Genocide’, ‘Never again is Now’ and ‘Globalise the Intifada‘ have been graffitied on in red paint overnight.
The vandals have also written the Dutch phrase ‘groetjes uit den haag’ which appears to translate to ‘Greetings from the Hague’.
Last night Westminster heritage wardens were pictured covering the graffiti with tape and plastic bin bags.
The area was cordoned off and being cleaned on Friday morning.
Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said: ‘Absolutely disgraceful – Churchill is the greatest champion of freedom in our history.
‘A truly great man who stood up to, and defeated, the most evil war criminal of them all.
A man, 38, has been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage after the incident, the Metropolitan Police have said.
Westminster heritage wardens begin covering the graffiti with tape and plastic bin bags
Matt Vickers, deputy chair of the Conservative Party, told GB News in reaction to the incident: ‘Its disgusting and vile. Whoever is doing this needs to be held to account.
‘When we were in office we brought forward legislation to help tackle this.
‘This is an attack on democracy, this is an attack on this country, its culture and its history.’
The images have also sparked fury online, with one X user saying: ‘Without Churchill there’d be no Britain left to protest in.
Another wrote: ‘I don’t want to share a country with people who think Churchill’s honour should be besmirched and who physically deface his statue.’
A third said: ‘He is a sacred symbol for the British. An attack on this statue is an attack on the heart of Britain.’
Meanwhile a fourth simply wrote: ‘Disgusting – pure anti-British hatred.’
In 2020, Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter activists defaced the statue with claims Churchill was a ‘racist’
Matt Vickers, deputy chair of the Conservative Party, said the vandals need to be ‘held to account’ over the incident
One critic said that ‘an attack on this statue is an attack on the heart of Britain’
The area was cordoned off on Friday morning to clean the monument
The bronze monument has stood outside the Houses of Parliament since 1973.
It has been vandalised several times in the past, including during protests.
The 12ft-tall statue was scrawled with graffiti accusing Sir Winston of being a ‘racist’ in June 2020 during a Black Lives Matter protest triggered by the death of George Floyd in the US.
Later that year, in October, an Extinction Rebellion activist was ordered to pay more than £1,500 after defacing the statue by painting ‘racist’ on its plinth during a climate protest.
The monument is one of 12 statues on or around Parliament Square, most of well-known statesmen such as Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.
The Government last year announced new laws making it a criminal offence for protesters to climb on the statue of Britain’s war-time leader.
And in December both the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police announced anyone chanting the controversial slogan ‘Globalise the intifada’ would face arrest.
The decision by the two police forces came in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack, and the terror attack at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on October 2.
According to author Michael Makovsky, Zionism was ‘central to the core of his [Churchill’s] being’.
The former prime minister reportedly ‘became enamored of the romantic notion of Jewish restoration to their ancient homeland’, saying in 1908: ‘I am in full sympathy with the historical traditional aspirations of the Jews…
‘The restoration to them of a centre of true racial and political integrity would be a tremendous event in the history of the world.’
And in 1921 Churchill was charged with implementing the Balfour Declaration – a letter supporting the ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’ – as colonial secretary.
Only a few months later he said: ‘Wherever the footprints of the Jew in Palestine are found you have prosperity, progress and scientific methods of cultivation, and where there was a wilderness you now find vineyards.’
