Mail on Sunday launches petition over Winston Churchill statue

The Mail on Sunday today calls on our readers to help block any attempt to remove the statue of Sir Winston Churchill from outside the Houses of Parliament.

Our petition urges Boris Johnson to make a public pledge that the monument to Britain’s celebrated wartime leader will never be moved after it was attacked by anti-fascist and Black Lives Matter protesters last weekend.

Churchill’s granddaughter alarmed war veterans, MPs and historians yesterday by suggesting the iconic sculpture may be safer in a museum.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan had the statue in Parliament Square boarded up with large metal sheets on Friday amid fears it would be targeted by protesters – a move Mr Johnson branded as ‘absurd and shameful’.

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Activists daubed the words ‘was a racist’ under Churchill’s name on the statue during angry anti-racism protests last weekend.

His granddaughter Emma Soames told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she felt ‘extraordinarily sad that my grandfather, who was such a unifying figure in this country, appears to have become a sort of icon through being controversial’.

She said if people were ‘so infuriated’ by seeing the statue, it may be ‘safer’ in a museum.

But Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames swiftly condemned any attempt to move it from the spot the former PM had chosen before he died in 1965.

‘I will have nothing of taking statues down and putting them in museums,’ he said.

People stand near the boarded up Churchill statue at Parliament Square in London yesterday

Sir Nicholas told protesters to ‘read your history and grow up’, and said it was ‘rubbish’ and a ‘lunatic representation’ to call his grandfather racist. He told LBC: ‘All his life he fought fascism.’

Churchill, who was Prime Minister twice, is considered a national hero and often leads polls on who was the greatest-ever Briton. His picture was chosen to appear on the new polymer £5 notes.

However, critics say his legacy is tarnished by controversial remarks he made about different races and his role in the Bengal famine in 1943 after Allied forces halted food supplies, leading to an estimated 3 million deaths.

Mr Johnson, who wrote a biography of Churchill in 2014, acknowledged the former PM had expressed opinions which were ‘unacceptable to us today’, but he remained a hero for saving Britain from ‘fascist and racist tyranny’. However, Mr Johnson was coming under increasing pressure last night to promise that the statue was going nowhere, amid a chorus of support for our petition.

A worker cleans graffiti from the plinth of Churchill statue at Parliament Square on Monday

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘Churchill is the greatest Briton without any question who has saved this country and the whole free world from the terrible tyranny of Nazi Germany. I want the Prime Minister and those in authority to make it clear the statue will never be removed from its plinth.’

Last night, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also backed our campaign, saying: ‘Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square stands as a tribute to his leadership and the Allied victory in the Second World War. It should not be moved.’

Colonel Richard Kemp, former British Army commander in Afghanistan, said: ‘Even to consider relocating the statue of Churchill is shameful. He was responsible for saving this country from the tyranny of Nazism – perhaps the most racist regime in history. Accusations of racism made against him are largely based on deliberate misrepresentations of history.’

A protective covering surrounds the Winston Churchill statue at Parliament Square on Friday

Former Chancellor Lord Lamont admitted that some of Churchill’s views belonged in the past but ‘he was a great man who saved this country from an evil regime. He has been an inspiration through the ages and remains so.’

Rear Admiral Chris Parry, a former Royal Navy commander, added: ‘Churchill should stay put. You have to look at his overall contribution. People calling for him to be moved are clueless as to the nuances of history.

‘Statues stimulate debate – you don’t have to agree with everything that figure did or said.’

Rusty Firmin, an SAS hero who took part in the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980, said: ‘Many of these people calling for the statue to be removed wouldn’t have been here today if the Nazi war machine had defeated us and our allies. So surely Winston Churchill defended all races? That statue could have easily been Adolf Hitler.’

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pictured at 10 Downing Street in London on Wednesday

Author Shrabani Basu, who has written books about the British Empire, said there were ‘two sides of Churchill’, and ‘we need to know his darkest hour as well as his finest hour’. But Ms Basu said she did not want to see the statue removed from Parliament Square.

Tory MP Matt Vickers was one of several parliamentarians who arrived to clean the graffiti off Churchill’s statue last Monday. He said: ‘Winston Churchill is one of Britain’s greatest figures and it is shameful that his statue was boarded up. We cannot allow rule by the mob to destroy the hard-won freedoms and rights he secured for us.’

Andrew Roberts, historian and author of Churchill: Walking With Destiny, said: ‘As well as being a Tory PM, Churchill was a Liberal for 20 years and a founder of the welfare state, so The Mail on Sunday’s excellent campaign is something that all Britons should be able get behind, regardless of politics.’