How the UK’s far right is trying to capitalise on the statues row
Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Mounting tensions were defused on Thursday evening, when Black Lives Matter cancelled its main London protest on Saturday and authorities boarded up statues including Winston Churchill – leaving nothing to “protect”. War memorials have also been graffitied and vandalised during recent demonstrations, and as long as Black Lives Matter protests continue, “defenders” are likely to confront them. Dr Joe Mulhall, Hope Not Hate’s head of research, said: “Statues and Black Lives Matter has really animated the British far right that we monitor, it has caused great excitement and anger. And the Black Lives Matter movement as a whole is being repurposed for wider conspiracy theories over “antifa terrorists”, George Soros, the “liberal elite” and a supposed New World Order.
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