Defiant Black Lives Matter protestor says he desecrated Churchill’s statue

The Black Lives Matter protester who ‘tagged’ the statue of Winston Churchill said he did it because Britain’s greatest Prime Minister was a ‘confirmed racist’ who cared more about colonialism than black people.

The masked young man, who is being searched for by the Metropolitan Police today for the vandalism in Parliament Square, claimed that Mr Churchill only fought the Nazis to protect the empire – not for ‘people of colour’.

Using black spray paint yesterday he daubed the phrase ‘was racist’ below the wartime leader’s name, leaving the monument reading: ‘Churchill was a racist’. A ‘f*** your agenda was also added.

After leaving Parliament Square last night he spoke to a BBC reporter and said: ‘I tagged up the statue of Churchill because he’s a confirmed racist. He fought the Nazis to protect the Commonwealth from invasion – he didn’t do it for black people or for people of colour.

‘It was purely for colonialism. People will be angry – but I’m angry that for many years we have been oppressed’.

He added; You can’t enslave people, have the largest colonial empire in history and be like “Yeah let’s be peaceful – let’s talk”. It don’t work like that. We’re p***ed off. F**k that’. He also said that people from BAME backgrounds who fought in the Second World War are not properly recognised for their sacrifices. 

Critics have flagged the Twitter video to the Met Police to help their investigation – but his supporters have urged the BBC reporter to delete it in case it led detectives to him accusing him of putting the graffiti artist ‘at risk’.

It came as a group of volunteers including four Army cadets cleaned up the memorial to Winston Churchill with their own cleaning products in London this morning.  One, a warehouse worker called Max Marshall, 25, who had just finished a night shift and went to Saturday’s protests, also cleaned up, telling MailOnline he went there because it ‘just felt like it was the right thing to do.’ 

A professional cleaner – remarkably called Winston – also turned up to do the job professionally after a group of Tory MPs started scrubbing the plinth before English Heritage officers told them to stop because they ‘would end up doing more damage’.

 

It came as the clean-up also began in Bristol as council crews removed BLM placards and used chemicals and spray to clean graffit off the plinth from which the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was torn down yesterday.

Speaking to MailOnline today, Max said: ‘For me it was a decision I made last night. I worked during a long night shift and I received the news that the statue was being defaced. I just felt like it was the right thing to do.

‘It was completely independent, I thought to myself I’d be the only one there. I didn’t mean to antagonise or upset anyone to do it. When I got there I was pleased to see four young Army cadets already cleaning the statue.

‘I did actually attend the Black Lives Matter protest on Saturday in support of the movement. I feel strongly to show solidarity. I understand the actions that carried on late into last night were that of a minority.

‘But I will not have war memorials defaced. The violence and to see the anger and hatred towards the police was very, very hard to watch for me. It came to standing up for what’s right.’ 

Max added: ‘We brought our own cleaning products and they weren’t really up to the job. We only left because remarkably a gentleman called Winston asked us to stop because he’d been asked to do the job professionally.’

Yesterday, one activist even scaled the huge statue to stick a ‘Black Lives Matter’ placard to the wartime leader’s torso. Home Secretary Priti Patel had branded those who had defaced the monument ‘repulsive criminals’.

She said: ‘Winston Churchill is one of the greatest Britons who ever lived. We have him to thank for our very freedom to protest. The vandals who did this are repulsive criminals who I want to see brought to justice.’

Under the Churchill status yesterday, a protester had stuck a sign laying out why they believed he was a racist, saying he called the Indians a ‘beastly’ people and supported the use of poison gas against ‘uncivilised tribes’. 

Some protestors posed for photos in front of the defaced statue and a group of activists took a knee around it in Parliament Square. Four uniformed police stood nearby as the crowd took photographs.

Banners with messages such as ‘British Colonialism is to Blame’ and ‘What if it was your son?’ had been left at the base of the column. A white man later stripped away the banners and walked away as the crowd shouted at him.

The area has become a key gathering place for activists demanding racial justice and opposing the Government. The £30,000 statue was unveiled by his widow Clementine in 1973 and created by Ivor Roberts-Jones.  

It is not the first time it has been defaced. In 2000, it was sprayed with red paint to give the appearance of blood dripping from its mouth, while during the 2010 student protests it was defaced and urinated on.

It comes after the Prime Minister said the anti-racism demonstrations had been ‘subverted by thuggery’ after protesters tore down a statue of a slave trader in Bristol and clashed with police in the capital.

Scotland Yard said 12 people were arrested and eight officers injured in London yesterday, while in Bristol protesters toppled the bronze memorial to slave trader Edward Colston and dumped it into the harbour.

Black Lives Matter demonstrations were carried out peacefully for much of yesterday in London, but there were clashes with police on Whitehall, with bottles thrown at officers in one incident near the Cenotaph.

Most of yesterday’s arrests related to public order offences, while one was for criminal damage following an incident at the Cenotaph. Scotland Yard said 29 people were arrested and 14 officers were injured on Saturday.