Boris Johnson 'stoking fear and division' ahead
of BLM protests
Critics say PM’s claim that George Floyd protests
‘hijacked by extremists’ are dangerous
Heather
Stewart, Peter Walker, Aamna Mohdin and Ben Quinn
Fri 12 Jun
2020 19.02 BSTLast modified on Sat 13 Jun 2020 04.25 BST
Boris
Johnson was accused of “stoking fear and division” ahead of a weekend of Black
Lives Matter demonstrations after he unequivocally condemned the removal of
historic statues and claimed the protests had been “hijacked by extremists
intent on violence”.
As statues
– including of Winston Churchill – were boarded up to protect them ahead of
planned marches, the prime minister tweeted his opposition to those calling for
memorials with links to slavery and racism to be torn down.
“We cannot
now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different
history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous
generations,” the prime minister wrote.
“They had
different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those
statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would
be to lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to
come.”
Johnson
said “we all understand” the “legitimate feelings of outrage” about the police
killing of George Floyd in the US last month, but “the only responsible course
of action” was to stay away from this weekend’s protests, which he said had
been “hijacked by extremists intent on violence”.
The
comments, set out in eight tweets, marked a significant escalation in his
criticism of the protesters, and sparked a backlash ahead of a potentially
febrile weekend, amid concerns over clashes between anti-racist campaigners and
“hate groups” including the far-right.
The shadow
home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, urged Johnson not to be “found wanting” at
what he called “a powerful moment in our history”.
Warning
that briefings with the police this week had highlighted the risk of “violence
on our streets,” he said: “The prime minister should be showing national
leadership, by coordinating the government’s response to the complex issues
underpinning these protests.
“This means
recognising the deep hurt so many black people in our country have spoken so
powerfully about, and setting our steps for meaningful action against racism in
our country.”
Christine
Jardine, the Liberal Democrat MP and home affairs spokesperson, said: “The
Black Lives Matter protests following the horrific killing of George Floyd by a
police officer have been overwhelmingly peaceful. The prime minister is stoking
division and fear in our communities by suggesting they have been hijacked by extremists.”
The Green
MP Caroline Lucas said: “When Boris Johnson was elected last year, he promised
he wanted to unite our country. Instead he is taking yet another leaf straight
out of Trump’s playbook, and deliberately whipping up his base, to divide and
polarise our communities.”
Johnson’s
intervention came amid pressure from Tory backbenchers to take a tougher line
with protesters. Ben Bradley, MP for Mansfield, tweeted: “This attack on our
history [and] our culture [is] increasingly aggravating my constituents.
Government need to be absolutely clear and firm on this if we are to keep a lid
on increasing tensions.”
Ministers
have stressed repeatedly that gatherings of more than six people remain illegal
under coronavirus regulations. But protesters said they would not be deterred.
While a BLM protest planned for Saturday was called off after busloads of
far-right activists were set to descend on London, anti-racist campaigners
vowed to keep demonstrating.
Tyrek, 21,
an organiser with All Black Lives UK, said of Johnson’s tweets: “This isn’t
going to stop us from going out on the streets. It’s within our right to
protest. Women’s rights has come from protesting, LGBT rights has come from
protesting, any big change has come from protest.”
The
protests across the country have been organised sporadically and by individuals
not associated with established anti-racist groups in the past two weeks. The
organisers of these protests, largely young students, have come together under
the umbrella of All Black Lives UK. They are working to facilitate more
localised protests.
“We’ve
built up momentum from the protests we’ve had and we intend on protesting as
much as we can until the government responds to our concerns,” Tyrek said.
“This isn’t a fad, this is a movement. It’s got steam now and it is going to
continue going ahead.”
On Friday,
fresh graffiti appeared on road signs on Penny Lane in Liverpool over claims
they are linked to slave merchant James Penny, and on a statue of Robert the
Bruce at the site of his most famous battle at Bannockburn. It was painted with
the slogan BLM and the words “racist king”. Robert the Bruce was king of
Scotland from 1306 until his death in 1329 and led Scotland during the first
war of Scottish independence against England, centuries before the
transatlantic slave trade began.
Some
leftwing Labour MPs have been keen to see the leadership weigh in on the row
more robustly.
Backbencher
Clive Lewis, who signed a letter to Priti Patel this week accusing her of
“gaslighting” and shutting down debate after citing her own experience of
racism, said he hoped his party’s leadership would continue to speak out.
“Keir’s taken the knee: he’s picked a side,” he said.
He called
for the history curriculum to be changed, so that pupils are taught “the dark
side” of Britain’s past – and questioned the use of the word “patriotism”.
“The word
patriotism, which Keir came out with the other day: if you take it literally,
it means fatherlandism. It’s about colonialism. It’s about empire. It’s
jingoistic. It’s got lots of connotations. I think we need to unpack it.” He
said Labour should be trying to present “an inclusive idea of what what it
means to be British”.
Crowds in
Bristol pulled down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston last weekend,
sparking a nationwide debate about the future of scores of other monuments to
controversial historical figures. All Labour councils in England and Wales
announced a review of monuments’ links to slavery.
The
Turner-prize winning sculptor Anish Kapoor described Johnson’s opinion on
statutes as “bullshit”, telling the Guardian: “Statues are not history, they
are emblematic monuments to our past which can be thought to represent how we
see ourselves and our history. It is long overdue that we reassess these
emblems and get rid of the bigots they portray.
“We must
acknowledge the horror perpetrated in our names by these horrid individuals and
seek to find nobler ways to make spaces of commemoration and history. This must
now mean looking at the forgotten amongst us.”
The
perceived threat to the Churchill statue in Parliament Square, Westminster,
which was daubed with graffiti at the weekend, was the focus of tweets by the
prime minister. Anti-racist campaigners monitoring hate speech say far-right
groups have been using the graffiti to stir anger among supporters and would-be
recruits.
BLM
organisers said they had decided to call off a planned protest at Hyde Park at
1pm on Saturday, and in a video message to supporters, the far-right extremist
Tommy Robinson said he would now not be travelling to the capital as it “would
be detrimental to racial tensions”.
Police are
still expecting protests and laid out conditions that would keep the two sets
of demonstrators apart, setting out different routes that they must follow.
They ordered that both sets of marchers must disperse by 5pm.
But
discussions on far-right online forums and those of some football gangs have
now turned to mobilising in other cities and towns including Leeds, Bristol and
Sunderland against perceived threats to contested historical monuments.
Far-right
activists have also discussed targeting statues such as that of Nelson Mandela,
perceived to be associated with their opponents, according to researchers at
the campaign group Hope not Hate.
“Many on
the far-right who tried to pretend they didn’t care about race, only culture
and identity, let the mask slip and openly started talking about whiteness and
race again and threatened to pull down the statue of Nelson Mandela in
Parliament Square,” said Nick Lowles, Hope not Hate’s chief executive.
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