Keir Starmer said it was “completely wrong” for Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol to pull down a statue of a slave trader and dump it in the harbour, while saying the monument should never have been there in the first place. Answering listeners’ questions on LBC radio, the Labour leader said the statue of Edward Colston should have been “brought down properly, with consent”, and placed in a museum. On Sunday, Boris Johnson said the weekend of protests, which also saw a few violent scenes in London, had been “subverted by thuggery” and promised police action.
However Marvin Rees, the mayor of Bristol, said he felt no “sense of loss” after the statue was pulled down, and the statue was a “personal affront” to him. The elected Labour mayor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “As an elected politician, obviously I cannot condone the damage and I am very concerned about the implications of a mass gathering on the possibility of a second Covid wave. “But I am of Jamaican heritage and I cannot pretend that I have any real sense of loss for the statue and I cannot pretend it was anything other than a personal affront to me to have it in the middle of Bristol, the city in which I grew up.” Priti Patel, the home secretary, called the removal of the Colston statue “utterly disgraceful”. Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, said on Monday that those responsible should be prosecuted. “A crime was committed, criminal damage was committed. There should be evidence gathered and a prosecution should follow,” he told BBC Breakfast. Asked about the incident in the first of a regular series of phone-in sessions for LBC, Starmer condemned the scenes in Bristol, but stressed the context of Colston’s actions as a slaver. “It shouldn’t have been done in that way, completely wrong to pull a statue down like that,” he said. “Stepping back, that statue should have been taken down a long, long time ago. We can’t, in 21st century Britain, have a slaver on a statue. A statue is there to honour people. “That statue should have been brought down properly, with consent, and put, I would say, in a museum.” Starmer continued: “This was a man who was responsible for 100,000 people being moved from Africa to the Caribbean as slaves, including women and children, who were branded, on their chests, with the name of the company that he ran. Of the 100,000, 20,000 died en route and they were chucked in the sea. He should not be on a statue in Bristol, or anywhere else.” Responding to another question, Starmer condemned Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP and former shadow international trade secretary, for attending an earlier Black Lives Matter protest during the coronavirus lockdown. “No, he shouldn’t have done it. He was wrong to do it,” Starmer said. “If you’re a member of parliament, you lead by example, and that means we maintain social distancing, in accordance with the government’s guidance.” In a tweet on Sunday evening, Johnson had said: “People have a right to protest peacefully and while observing social distancing but they have no right to attack the police. These demonstrations have been subverted by thuggery – and they are a betrayal of the cause they purport to serve. Those responsible will be held to account.” Rees praised Avon and Somerset police’s decision to not intervene and try to stop the statue being pulled down. “I think our police were incredible actually, and this is intelligent, nuanced policing, not Trumpian militarisation domination,” he told BBC Breakfast.