The comments made by Nigel Farage, the former leader of the Brexit Party, on 21 March 2021.
In Bristol tonight we see what the soft-headed approach to the anti-police BLM leads to.
Wake up everyone, this is not about racial justice.
These people want all-out anarchy and street violence.
The statement made by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 21 March 2021.
Awful, shocking scenes in Bristol.
There is no excuse whatsoever for this violence.
Thinking of those officers who have been injured, and their families, and wishing them a swift recovery.
The statement made by Will White from Avon and Somerset Police on 21 March 2021.
What started out as a peaceful protest has been turned by a small minority into a violent disorder.
These scenes are absolutely disgraceful and they will be widely condemned by people across the city. There can never be any excuse for wanton disorder.
Officers have been subjected to considerable levels of abuse and violence. One suffered a broken arm and another suffered broken ribs. Both have been taken to hospital. These are men and women out there with the intention of serving and protecting the public – they should never be subjected to assaults or abuse in this way.
At least two police vehicles have been set on fire and damage has been caused to the outside of the station. Protestors are not inside the building.
We have requested mutual aid from neighbouring forces to bring this incident to a safe conclusion.
All those involved in this criminal behaviour will be identified and brought to justice. There will be significant consequences for behaviour such as this.
The comments made by Sean Ivey, a former marine whose house was attacked following this intervention, on anti-social behaviour, on 17 March 2021. A JustGiving page was set up after the destruction caused to Ivey’s property.
TIME FOR CHANGE!!!
Last night, four males walked into my Mam and Dad’s house and robbed them. They were carrying weapons and threatened them both. They stole money, alcohol and very personal belongings with great sentimental value. And another thing, this was at 7.30! Half 7 at night and they just walked in!
What the hell is going on!!!!!
At the weekend, I had a run in with a young male riding like a lunatic on an off-road bike in Shotton and causing damage to people’s property. The following day I saw another riding down Wingate front street, pulling wheelies and mounting the paths.
Groups of young lads have been see riding around on quads through Wingate, Station Town, Shotton, Wheatley Hill, Thornley etc, with absolutely no consideration for the public. They also caused 1000’s of pounds worth of damage to a local airfield.
A local councillor recently had his car set on fire right in front of his bedroom and so the flames burst through the window, causing damage to his house. Another elderly man was broken into, assaulted and burgled in his bungalow a couple of years ago.
Young people are congregating outside of Wingate Tandoori, hurling abuse at passers by and throwing objects at cars. Due to the abuse and damage to his car, one delivery driver for the Tandoori had to leave… this has affected his livelihood!
I was speaking to one lady who works in Wingate and lives near the point where these youngsters are congregating. She gets a lift home because she is afraid of walking past them!!! And this is not a single case!
Once upon a time, these were isolated incidents but unfortunately, they are not anymore.
Something really has to change!!! I don’t know how and I do not know what we can do but I think it’s time that the people, the good people of our communities, got together and come up with some ideas to hopefully get rid of these thugs and clean up our streets.
People are afraid of reporting incidents to the police because of the potential repercussions. Kids are being kept on much shorter leashes because parents are afraid of what may happen to them.
To that end, I am calling on the local Parish Councils to call public meetings and get a real idea of how we really feel living amongst these criminals, and then WORK TOGETHER (NOT INDIVIDUALLY!), to get them off our streets. They move and cause damage from one place to another so there has got to be something done which targets the area as a whole, not just Wingate or Horden or Wheatley Hill etc!!!
EVERYONE! It’s also time for our local council representatives to earn your wage and help us come up with some solutions. The police cannot do it alone because they don not have the man power and they need the evidence to arrest and convict.
If you’re as pissed off as I am then please write to your local councils and bombard them with orders that something must be done.
The letter written by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, to Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 20 March 2021.
Dear Chancellor,
I wanted to raise my concerns with you directly about a report in the Financial Times on 18 March 2021 regarding Greensill Capital’s access to state-backed emergency Covid-19 loan schemes.
As you may be aware, the report suggests that the former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron lobbied Her Majesty’s Treasury personally on behalf of Greensill Capital. It also alleges that you personally intervened to request meetings between the bank and Treasury officials, and cites a freedom of information request detailing an official summary of a conversation prepared for the Second Permanent Secretary to the Treasury following a meeting with Greensill representatives that states: “At the Chancellor’s request you [the Second Permanent Secretary] took a call from Greensill last night (May 14). You set out that no decision had yet been taken but the Chancellor had asked you to revert to them on two points.”
Public records further show that several meetings took place between your officials and representatives of the bank between March and June 2020. Your officials met five of the 27 accredited CLBILS lenders during this period: Greensill, RBS, Lloyd’s Bank, Santander and Barclays. The records show that officials met with Greensill on ten separate occasions compared to just two with Santander and one each with Lloyd’s, RBS and Barclays. The other 22 accredited lenders for the scheme are not reported to have met with Treasury officials at all.
It appears that after initial attempts by Greensill to secure access to the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility were unsuccessful, the bank was later accepted as an accredited lender and partner of the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Scheme and granted permission to issue these loans – 80 per cent of which were guaranteed by the UK Government – up to a maximum of £50 million. It has since been reported in The Sunday Times that Greensill issued eight of these taxpayer-backed loans – a total of £400 million – to Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance group and companies linked to him. While the BBB has now withdrawn the guarantees for these loans, Greensill is still listed on its website as an accredited lender and partner for the CLBILS scheme.
The revelations in the FT article raise extremely serious questions for your Government. I am concerned that it appears Greensill Capital was granted so much access to the Treasury at a time when the representatives of the millions of people excluded from the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme were asking for your time and support to find a solution to the issues with that scheme. This is made even more serious and urgent given Greensill’s subsequent collapse.
I would like to seek clarity from you on this issue and others raised in the FT article, specifically in answer to the following questions:
As Chancellor, it is your duty to protect the public finances. The public deserve urgent and clear answers to these questions so they can be reassured that the decision to make Greensill an accredited lender for the CLBILS scheme was taken with due diligence.
Best wishes,
Anneliese Dodds
The statement made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in the House of Commons on 18 March 2021.
Today, the Government are launching the next phase of the rough sleeping accommodation programme. Councils across England are invited to bid for a share of funding totalling £212 million for 2021-22 to 2023-24 to deliver move-on homes for rough sleepers. These homes will be a national asset to support vulnerable people, and high-quality support services will be provided alongside to help vulnerable people move on from rough sleeping.
This funding is part of the £433 million rough sleeping accommodation programme available over the lifetime of this Parliament to deliver 6,000 new homes for rough sleepers, announced by the Government in May 2020. This represents the largest ever investment in move-on accommodation. Today’s announcement builds on the first year of the programme, in which the Government allocated more than £150 million for move-on accommodation for rough sleepers, as well as investing in high-quality support over the next three years, so that vulnerable people helped through the programme can maintain their tenancies and move on from rough sleeping.
Further information on future years of the programme is available in the fund’s prospectus, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rough-sleeping-accommodation-programme-2021-24.
The Government have made clear that no one should be without a roof over their head, which is why we have committed to end rough sleeping. That is also why, including this programme, we have spent £700 million in 2020-21 and are spending over £750 million over the next financial year to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
This programme builds on the Government’s unprecedented Everyone In initiative, which has so far supported 37,000 individuals during the pandemic, with more than 26,000 already successfully moved on to longer-term accommodation. Together with our pledge to fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act, this funding demonstrates our commitment to making the most of this opportunity to transform the lives of the some of the most vulnerable in society, and to ending rough sleeping for good.
The statement made by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 18 March 2021.
Global Britain has a proud record of helping those fleeing persecution, oppression or tyranny from around the world. In addition to providing £10 billion each year to support people in need through overseas aid, the UK is a global leader in refugee resettlement. Between 2016 and 2019 we resettled more refugees from outside Europe than any EU member state.
In 2015, we committed to resettle 20,000 of the most vulnerable refugees who fled the brutal conflict in Syria through the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme (VPRS). This included people requiring urgent medical treatment, survivors of violence and torture, and women and children at risk.
Today we are delighted to be able to confirm that we have now met that commitment. We have resettled 20,080 vulnerable refugees across the UK since September 2015.
In total, this means that, across all Government-funded resettlement schemes, more than 25,000 refugees have been resettled in the UK over the past six years, around half of whom were children.
This achievement has been made possible thanks to the outstanding work and dedication of many partners, including non-governmental organisations in the UK and international partners, community and faith groups, local authorities, devolved Administrations and individual members of the public. I am truly grateful for this collaborative effort.
Resettlement is vital to safely and legally provide a path to settlement for vulnerable people fleeing persecution and it is right that we continue to offer safe pathways for those in need of protection. The launch of our new global UK resettlement scheme will now build on the success of previous schemes and we will continue our proud record of resettling refugees who need our help from around the world.
We want refugees in the UK to have the freedom to succeed and that means access to the tools they need to become fully independent, provide for themselves and their families and the ability to contribute and integrate into the economic and cultural life of the UK.
That is why today I have also announced £14 million of funding to help newly granted refugees to integrate in the UK. The £14 million fund will pilot new approaches across the country to support newly granted refugees to learn English, move into work, access housing and build links in their local communities. Lessons learned from these pilots will inform future support available to all refugees.
This Government continue to step forward to provide help to those facing oppression or tyranny. This year we have also introduced a new pathway to citizenship for British national (overseas) status holders and their family members who are facing draconian new security laws in Hong Kong, which may see an estimated 320,000 people come to the UK over the next five years.
We have also enabled over 29,000 close relatives of refugees to join them in the UK through refugee family reunion in the last five years.
Looking ahead, as we reform the asylum system, global Britain will continue its proud tradition of providing safe haven to those in need through safe and legal routes.
The statement made by Paul Scully, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in the House of Commons on 18 March 2021.
Problems with the Post Office’s Horizon IT system have affected the lives and livelihoods of many postmasters.
Over the years, the Horizon accounting system recorded shortfalls in cash in branches. The Post Office at the time thought that some of these were caused by postmasters, and this led to dismissals, recovery of losses by Post Office Ltd and, in some instances, criminal prosecutions.
A group of 555 of these postmasters, led by former postmaster Alan Bates, brought a group litigation claim against the Post Office in 2016. It is clear from the findings of Mr Justice Fraser, just how wrong the Post Office was in its relationship with postmasters and that there were clear failings with the Horizon system.
The Government pay tribute to those postmasters and colleagues across the House who continue to shine a spotlight on such an important issue.
The Post Office reached a full and final settlement with claimants in the group litigation in December 2019 and apologised for its past failings. That settlement was an important step towards addressing the wrongs of the past, but it was only the start of a long journey for the Post Office to repair and strengthen the relationship with postmasters.
As part of the settlement the Post Office agreed to set up the historical shortfall scheme. The scheme was open to current and former postmasters who did not participate in the group litigation claim against the Post Office and did not have a criminal conviction, but who may have experienced and repaid Horizon shortfalls. It is therefore an important step in making sure that all those who were affected have the opportunity to seek resolution.
The scheme closed in August 2020 and received over 2,400 applications. This number was higher than the Post Office had anticipated when the scheme was established. All of these applications of course need to be properly assessed.
The Post Office is committed to the successful delivery and timely completion of the historical shortfall scheme. However, the cost of the scheme is beyond what the business can afford.
The Government will therefore provide sufficient financial support to the Post Office to ensure that the scheme can proceed, based on current expectations of the likely cost. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is providing this support in his capacity as sole shareholder in the Post Office.
There are two reasons this is being done.
First, we must ensure that those postmasters who have applied to this scheme are able to seek redress. By supporting the scheme, we will make it possible for these postmasters to be fairly compensated.
Secondly, we must protect the post office network. As we have seen through the pandemic, it provides essential services to citizens across the country.
Without this support the Post Office would be unable to deliver fully the historical shortfall scheme and it would be unable to continue to operate its network as we know it today. This is a critical intervention that benefits current and former postmasters and the millions of customers that rely on their local post office branch.
The final cost of delivering the historical shortfall scheme will be determined over the coming months, including through the work of an independent panel. This support will ensure that postmasters are appropriately compensated, however we will not spend more of taxpayers’ money than is necessary to ensure the scheme meets its objectives.
The Post Office is rightly contributing what it can from its own resources to the delivery of the scheme.
While it is important that the scheme remains independent of Government it is also important that this shareholder support delivers value for money. The Government are confident that the controls in place in the design of the historical shortfall scheme will make sure this is the case.
The Post Office will make the first offers to applicants shortly. However, given the number of applications it will take time to work through all the claims that the Post Office has received. The Government would therefore like to thank postmasters in advance for their patience and reassure them that their claims will be properly handled.
The Horizon dispute has affected the lives of too many people and supporting the scheme operated by the Post Office will help them right the wrongs of the past.
We must also ensure that a situation like this can never be allowed to occur again. That is why this Government have asked Sir Wyn Williams to lead the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
Sir Wyn’s inquiry will work to fully understand what happened, gather available evidence and ensure lessons have been learnt so that this cannot occur again. It will also look specifically at whether the historical shortfall scheme is being properly delivered. The Government look forward to receiving Sir Wyn’s report in the summer.
The speech made by Christopher Pincher, the Minister for Housing, in the House of Commons on 18 March 2021.
May I begin by congratulating both my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) on securing this debate and the other Members who have spoken on their excellent, sincere and considered contributions? I always listen with great care and attention to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and, as far as I am able, I always do what I can to achieve his objects. No one, either, would ever question my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for being anything other than punchy and patriotic in the pursuit of his constituents’ interests.
The starting point, and the end point, for this Government is that it is our duty to protect our nation’s history, traditions and heritage. We believe that our history shapes us, that we are poorer if we seek to deny that history, and that the right approach to statues and other public landmarks, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) attested, however contentious they may be to some, is to retain and, if it is appropriate, to explain them to enable better public understanding and respect.
Many Members, today and in previous debates in the House, have spoken proudly of the tradition that we have in this country of commemorating individuals with statues to acknowledge their contributions to society, whether at local or national level. Those erected by local communities can be a lasting and shared source of local pride. Frank Whittle, the inventor of the jet engine, is commemorated in Coventry, where he is from, and in Lutterworth, Rugby and a number of other places around our country. Edith Cavell’s memorial near Trafalgar Square was erected by public subscription, as was the statue in my own town, Tamworth, to Sir Robert Peel, a man who repealed the corn laws, emancipated the Catholics, founded the police—a force for liberal good in our country, even though last year there was a flurry on social media to pull him down.
My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington spoke about his concerns at the action of the Mayor of London in setting up his commission for diversity in the public realm, with the purported intention of increasing the representation of London’s great and diverse communities in its built environment, but the real aim of which seems to be to airbrush the past and demolish public monuments to our history. Certainly, its composition is concerning—as my hon. Friend suggested, one member has already been forced to resign—and although I have written to the Mayor about its true cost and its true intentions, he has yet to reply to me, so I share my hon. Friend’s concerns.
Marco Longhi
Does the Minister therefore agree that the £1.1 million that the Mayor purportedly intends to spend on his commission for statues should be spent on better supporting Londoners at this very difficult time, and that the Leader of the Opposition should direct the Mayor to do exactly that?
Christopher Pincher
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who of course has a statue to the Earl of Dudley looking over his town in the west midlands. The Leader of the Opposition should take his Mayor in hand, but I am afraid that I must borrow from Euripides, who famously said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. If Euripides were with us today, he would probably say that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make members and leaders of the Labour party, because the leader of the Labour party has gone mad. He has been captured. He is a POW—a prisoner of woke. I trust that he will be released so that he can direct his friend the Mayor of London to pay greater attention to Londoners, because it will be for them, ultimately, to judge whether that £1.1 million of public expenditure is spent on statue destruction, or whether the Mayor might better spend his time and the public’s money trying to put up more homes for Londoners rather than pull down their statues in public parks.
I suspect that the Mayor’s real interest is to distract us and draw our attention away from his lamentable failure to build a better future for Londoners. To borrow from Churchill—by the way, his statues are going nowhere—Sadiq Khan is a very modest Mayor with much to be modest about. Let me be quite clear: his lopsided commission has no mandate to advocate for the removal of existing statues. The Government’s policy is that historic statues should be retained and explained rather than removed, and any such proposed removal of an historic statue should rightly be, and will be, subject to planning permission or listed building consent.
Sir John Hayes
And, I hope, to acclaim. In congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) on securing the debate, may I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to support the idea that I advanced of more plaques and statues, particularly for winners of the VC and GC, who, by the way, are drawn from all ethnicities?
Christopher Pincher
I am always prepared to recognise the honour done for us by those great men who won the Victoria Cross, from wherever they hailed, and I certainly hope that more plaques to their memory are forthcoming.
By doing the things that we are proposing to do, we will give the whole community—not simply the self-loathing, Britain-hating perpetual revolutionaries who seem to have captured the commanding heights of the Labour party, but the whole community—the opportunity to engage and to give their views. Additionally, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has the power to call in planning applications, and he has set out his intention to exercise that power if appropriate.
It is clear from the contributions in this debate and in the wider public discourse that, with the passing of time and changing values in society, there will be examples of those who have had statues erected to them whose own story—and perhaps their family’s—is complex. Many statues and other historical objects were created by generations with different perspectives on right and wrong from our own. Some of what they believed to be virtues, we now believe to be vices. But it is better—far better—to remember that history, reflect that not everyone in the past was perfect, and retain that history and its monuments, so that we can all better understand it, not destroy it as the Marxist, wokeist ideologues would insist on.
We have a proud and rich history. Britain led the way in the abolition of slavery; we were foremost in abolishing it. The Royal Navy was one of the seminal forces sweeping it from the seas. So when we hear of those who argue that some public memorials are an abomination and that statues of people who profited from the transatlantic slave trade should be taken down, this Government’s clear view is that doing so is quite misguided. As my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington asked, where does that misguided logic end? Are we to take down the statue of Julius Caesar from Tower Hill, for we can be pretty sure that he brought slaves with him in 54 BC and doubtless carried away a few enslaved ancient Britons when he left? Do we want the Elgin marbles taken down and hidden away because they appear to deny the existence of slavery in ancient Greece? That is where that logic leads, but where does it end?
Our view of retaining and, where right, explaining is shared by Historic England, the Government’s advisory body on the historic environment. If we remove difficult and contentious parts of our heritage, we risk harming our own understanding of our collective past; yet that is where some of these book burners of the internet age are set on going. Ours is a great country with a proud and illustrious heritage of democracy, freedom and rule of law, and that is why we do not gloss over any failures in our past, nor seek to destroy the historic heritage that can help us understand those failures.
I am pleased to update the House on the changes that the Government are bringing forward to ensure the protection of our heritage. The planning system plays a crucial part in conserving and enhancing our heritage. I am pleased to tell the House that under the changes coming into effect in the spring, any proposals to remove an unlisted public landmark will require an application for planning permission, giving communities the right to be consulted. We are also introducing notification requirements to ensure that the Secretary of State is made aware of any contentious applications and has the opportunity to exercise his call-in powers if he considers that appropriate
History, by its nature, can be contentious. But rest assured: the Government will act to ensure that our national heritage is protected from those who would seek to remove or deface it. The Spanish philosopher, Jorge Santayana, wrote in his “The Life of Reason”—and Churchill often quoted him—
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
For the sake of our remembered history, so that we do not repeat it—and, please, for the sanity of the Labour party—let us agree to remember and explain our past, not seek to destroy it.
The speech made by Gareth Bacon, the Conservative MP for Orpington, in the House of Commons on 18 March 2021.
Britain is under attack—not in a physical sense, but in a philosophical, ideological and historical sense. Our heritage is under direct assault. There are those who seek to call the very sense of what it is to be British today into question. Attempts are being made to rewrite our history, indoctrinate our children with anti-British propaganda and impose an alternative worldview.
Our institutions have been undermined. Attempts have been made to sully the reputations of towering figures from British history because the views of their time may not conform to today’s values. The rise of the power, reach and influence of social media in recent years has been highly influential, increasing the pace and spread of what is a broadly left-wing, anti-British, anti-western and anti-capitalist rhetoric. A domino phenomenon is being witnessed as a succession of national institutions and organisations accept, seemingly without question or critical analysis, the new orthodoxy.
The new orthodoxy has become colloquially known as the woke perspective. In modern day Britain, the woke viewpoint includes attacking the historical concept of Britain by reinterpreting British history in a slanted and decontextualised manner, using modern viewpoints and value judgments. In woke eyes, the British empire is no longer seen as a modernising, civilising force that spread trade, wealth and the rule of law around the globe. Instead, it is viewed as a racist, colonialist, oppressive force than invaded sovereign foreign countries, plundered them and enslaved people en masse.
Great British heroes such as Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson and Sir Winston Churchill, who were until comparatively recently almost universally regarded in a highly favourable light, now have their reputations besmirched.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this matter to the House. When we record greatness, we celebrate men and women who are inherently imperfect. When I look at Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square, I honour what Churchill represented: duty, fortitude and an unwavering belief that when we British stood together, we could not be defeated. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that these are worthy of celebration and honour today, and that by tearing them down we make no statement other than that we will not acknowledge our past, which makes me fear for our future?
Gareth Bacon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I agree with him unreservedly. I would also like to acknowledge the honour of being intervened on by him. I gather this is a rite of passage for any Member of Parliament: you are not really a Member of Parliament until you have been intervened upon by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), so I am very grateful to him.
Britain, a small country on the north-western edge of the European continent that led the world in the fields of science, industry, democracy, trade, law, the arts and much more besides, and that stood and fought, often for long periods alone, for freedom against European tyranny in the shape of Napoleon and Nazism and successfully opposed Soviet Communism, is reinterpreted in the woke perspective solely as a slave-owning force of oppression and evil. The slanted views of the woke perspective focus firmly on the past. Its preoccupation is with rewriting that past in order to alter the present. By rewriting Britain’s long and varied history to focus solely on slavery, without any acknowledgement of Britain’s huge role in stamping it out, the woke perspective seeks historical justification for its ideological belief that modern Britain is inherently racist, with an entirely shameful past.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that woke activists are of course entitled to their views, and to express them, but that they are not entitled to impose those views as though they were in any way authoritative or unchallengeable? Does he agree that that is an arrogant and divisive standpoint to take?
Gareth Bacon
I agree with my hon. Friend. In any mature democracy, the right to hold alternative views and to express them is unchallengeable. However, what I do not think is unchallengeable is an attempt to stamp out contrary views, to cancel people, to bully and intimidate them and to make them fear for their safety simply because they have an alternative view.
This woke view of our nation’s history fails to recognise the open, tolerant and global Britain that is a force for good in the world—a champion of democracy, equality, peace and prosperity that was forged in the empire. Its mission is to destroy the accepted sense of Britain in order to impose a countervailing ideological perspective, because if it delegitimises the one, it is possible to legitimise the other. Of course, there is no better way to achieve this than to topple the towering heroes on which British history balances. For example, left-wing efforts to paint Churchill as a racist are an attempt to warp our country’s memory of the second world war.
It is against this backdrop that we see a sudden push from some quarters to question the legitimacy of the statues, monuments and even the road names of certain parts of our country. Chief among them, of course, is London. Our capital city has always been the political, governmental, financial and cultural centre of our country. It therefore has many historic monuments. Unfortunately for London, it also has a Mayor who has never wasted a moment in ingratiating himself with woke activists.
Within days of the protests in central London last summer, Sadiq Khan announced that he would create a commission for diversity in the public realm. Staggeringly, for a man who constantly pleads poverty when it comes to carrying out his core functions of building houses, running the transport system or keeping people safe on the streets, Sadiq Khan has set aside £1.1 million of taxpayers’ money for this exercise. He claims that the commission is about putting up more monuments of historically significant black and ethnic minority figures and to aid public understanding. This indeed is a worthy aim, but he rather let the cat out of the bag when asked last June whether he thought the commission would lead to statues being removed, and he said, “I hope so.”
The Mayor’s desire to rewrite history is underlined in the application pack for people aspiring to be on the commission. In it, the Mayor states:
“Our statues, street names, memorials and buildings have left a distorted view of the past.”
He goes on to call for the commission to:
“Further the discussion into what legacies should be celebrated.”
The terms of reference for the commission stated that there would be:
“A fair and transparent recruitment process resulting in a group of 15 Commission Members in addition to the two Co-Chairs with broad-ranging knowledge, expertise and lived experience relevant to the work of the Commission.”
Anyone who takes that at face value is either spectacularly naive or they have not been following the development of Sadiq Khan’s mayoralty.
In February, the membership of the commission was announced, and it is fair to say that it removed any pretence that it would produce an impartial and objective historical world view. One of the commissioners has already been forced to resign for antisemitic comments he made in the past. Of the remaining commissioners, one has said:
“The UK is evil. It is the common denominator in atrocities across the world and is responsible for white supremacy everywhere.”
Another said:
“Boris Johnson is an out and out complete”—
he then uses an obscene four-letter word beginning with c —“who is overtly racist.” He goes on to express support for defunding the police. A third claimed last year that:
“The concept of race was created by white people in order to give them power over non-white people.”
When setting this commission up, the Mayor claimed:
“The membership will be representative of London’s diversity.”
Diversity of what? Certainly not diversity of thought or of political opinion. These people are hand-picked, hard-left political activists. Sadiq Khan is playing an irresponsible and dangerous game by establishing a new commission to tear down London’s landmarks. The Mayor expects this to be an easy, virtue-signalling public relations win, but his decision has created division and inflamed tensions in the capital. A recent poll conducted by YouGov found that 42% of Londoners oppose the plans, compared with 38% who are in favour of them.
An e-petition calling for the protection of all historical statues and monuments has attracted more than 35,000 signatures of support. Shaun Bailey, Mr Khan’s Conservative opponent in the forthcoming London mayoral election, commented:
“The Mayor has driven wedges between communities…With his diversity commission, he’s trying to re-write British history, but he does not have the expertise or the authority to do this.”
He is completely correct.
One of my constituents wrote to me, and I will quote what he said at length. He said:
“I originated from Pakistan and my late Father was born in India. I am very concerned about how the identity politics and cancel culture is being promoted. I fully support those who have raised their concerns about Mr Khan’s initiative about changing the names of London roads and dismantling historic statues and monuments.
There are no other nations or countries which will wipe out or bring disrepute to their empires or Kingdoms and will actively degrade their heroes. History is history and let it not punish our present!”
He continues:
“If we study the…British Empire, the British left a huge legacy throughout its vast empire. The British made a chain of Universities and medical colleges, the world’s best irrigation system, it introduced a new structure of administration and introduced democracy in the Subcontinent. It built modern infrastructure including railway tracks, bridges and railway stations. Moreover Britain has welcomed people from North, South, East and West and we must teach patriotism in our schools.”
Whether we like it or not, there are many very good, some bad and a few ugly elements in Britain’s past, and it is a complicated picture, filled with imperfect heroes. The notion that historical figures should be judged by today’s standards will eliminate every British hero this country holds dear. Will Sadiq Khan topple Churchill for his support for the British empire? Will Admiral Nelson fall for living in a time when slavery existed? Will Sir Francis Drake, Oliver Cromwell, King James II, Lord Kitchener and William Gladstone be erased, and their contributions to British history forgotten, because they were flawed characters? Where do we draw the line? Should Gandhi’s statue be removed because he believed Indians were racially superior to Africans? Will Karl Marx’s tomb be destroyed because of his deeply held antisemitism? Should Egypt’s pyramids and Rome’s colosseum fall because they were built by slaves and those civilisations profited from that abhorrent trade?
This is why Sadiq Khan was wrong to jump on this latest virtue-signalling bandwagon. His decision to tear down statues in London risks encouraging left-wing mobs to topple statues themselves and far-right mobs to take to the streets to protect them. The events of last summer are proof of that. Instead of posturing in this way, the Mayor should take a long, hard look at his record of failure, which has left communities behind in London. After five years at the helm of City Hall, it is time he took his fair share of responsibility for the challenges and inequities that exist in London today. On his watch: violent crime soared to record levels and murder reached an 11-year high; only 17,000 affordable homes have been completed in five years; 22 major transport upgrades that could regenerate communities have either been delayed or cancelled; and Crossrail is three years late and £4 billion over budget, and Transport for London has lost £2 billion in fares income it would otherwise have accumulated.
The sad truth is that London is saddled with a Mayor who is not especially interested in the core functions of his role. There is no virtue he will not signal, no passing bandwagon he will not jump on and no gallery he will not play to in his never-ending attempt to ingratiate himself with the latest trend on Twitter. Pandering to woke activists in this way is deeply disturbing. These moves are illegitimate and dangerous. They will do nothing for inclusiveness. Instead, they will foster bitterness and resentment on all sides. We must not go down this route. If the Mayor of London insists on pushing ahead with this deeply divisive, virtue-signalling exercise, the Government should step up to protect our national heritage and explicitly strip him of the power to dismantle it.