Man arrested after Churchill statue outside UK parliament sprayed with graffiti | UK news

A 38-year-old man has been arrested after a statue of Winston Churchill outside the Houses of Parliament was defaced with graffiti calling the former prime minister a “Zionist war criminal”.

Metropolitan police said the man was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage on Friday morning.

Phrases such as “stop genocide” and “liberate Palestine” were sprayed in red paint on the bronze statue in Parliament Square in central London.

A Met spokesman said: “Shortly after 4am on Friday, February 27, a man was seen spraying graffiti on the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square. The first officers arrived at the scene within two minutes. The 38-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage. He remains in custody.”

Last December both the Met and Greater Manchester police announced that anyone chanting the slogan “make the intifada global” would be arrested.

The decision by the two police forces comes after two terror attacks at Bondi Beach in Australia and at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on October 2.

The former prime minister’s statue has been vandalized many times in the past, including during protests. He was scrawled with graffiti accusing Churchill of being a racist during the Black Lives Matter protest triggered by the death of George Floyd in the US in June 2020.

In October the same year, an Extinction Rebellion activist was ordered to pay more than £1,500 after defacing a statue with the word “racist” on its plinth during a climate protest.

Created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, the 3.6-metre monument was unveiled in 1973 by the former prime minister’s wife, Clementine Churchill. It is one of 12 statues located on or around Parliament Square, many of which belong to well-known statesmen such as Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.