Right-wing violence escalates and white man urinates next to police memorial
A man urinated next to a memorial dedicated to the police officer killed in the Westminster terror attack amid violent clashes between far-right protesters and police in central London.
Several hundred demonstrators, mostly white men, attended the protest organised by far-right groups, including Britain First, which claimed they wanted to protect statues such as Winston Churchill from vandalism. Meanwhile, anti-racist Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrations were peaceful.
But fights erupted in areas near the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square, as demonstrators repeatedly assailed officers with foul-mouthed chants and missiles, smoke grenades and flares.
Shards of glass were strewn along the streets close to the Cenotaph on Whitehall after bottles were thrown at police officers clad in riot gear.
The violent scenes are in contrast with peaceful demonstrations that took place at Hyde Park and Marble Arch by anti-racism protesters in support of the BLM movement.
Read on...


MP Tobias Ellwood, who gave first aid to Pc Keith Palmer as he lay dying after being stabbed to death in the grounds Parliament by Khalid Masood in 2017, said the image of the man urinating next to the memorial was “abhorrent”.
The Tory MP for Bournemouth East and chairman of the Defence Select Committee tweeted a picture of the man and wrote: “Absolute shame on this man”:
Absolute shame on this man.
Of all the images to emerge over these few testing days I find this one of most abhorrent.
Please help identify him. pic.twitter.com/8ydcNmTWrN
— Tobias Ellwood MP (@Tobias_Ellwood) June 13, 2020
https://twitter.com/Turkish_Futbol1/status/1271824722389536769?s=20
On 12 June, statues in Parliament Square – including of Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi – were boarded up to prevent them being targeted by protesters both from the Black Lives Matter movement and far-right groups.
The Metropolitan Police warned people joining demonstrations on 13 June that they must be off the streets by 5pm or risk being arrested.
At around 4pm, the crowd in Parliament Square thinned out after one of the exits was opened, although a few hundred people remained in the area ahead of the 5pm deadline.
The violence has been condemned by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and home secretary Priti Patel, with the latter branding it as “thoroughly unacceptable thuggery”.
This is totally unacceptable. We will not tolerate attacks on our police and perpetrators will feel the full force of the law.
It is clear that far right groups are causing violence and disorder in central London, I urge people to stay away. https://t.co/ZImnvmfWeL
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) June 13, 2020
Speaking before the clashes, Paul Golding, leader of Britain First, said the crowds had turned out to “guard our monuments”. Golding was convicted of a terror offence in May.
There were similar gatherings on Saturday in Belfast, Glasgow and Bristol with crowds massing around monuments.
In Brighton, more than 1,000 protesters formed a line along the seafront in a Black Lives Matter demonstration.
Protests against police brutality and racism have erupted all over the UK and across the globe following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police nearly three weeks ago.
Last week, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down and dumped into Bristol harbour by anti-racism protesters, while the UK’s war-time Prime Minister memorial in London was defaced with the words “was a racist”.
The UK Protests in support of Black Lives Matter have largely been peaceful.
We need your help to keep speaking the truth
Every story that you have come to us with; each injustice you have asked us to investigate; every campaign we have fought; each of your unheard voices we amplified; we do this for you. We are making a difference on your behalf.
Our fight is your fight. You’ve supported our collective struggle every time you gave us a like; and every time you shared our work across social media. Now we need you to support us with a monthly donation.
We have published nearly 2,000 articles and over 50 films in 2021. And we want to do this and more in 2022 but we don’t have enough money to go on at this pace. So, if you value our work and want us to continue then please join us and be part of The Canary family.
In return, you get:
* Advert free reading experience
* Quarterly group video call with the Editor-in-Chief
* Behind the scenes monthly e-newsletter
* 20% discount in our shop
Almost all of our spending goes to the people who make The Canary’s content. So your contribution directly supports our writers and enables us to continue to do what we do: speaking truth, powered by you. We have weathered many attempts to shut us down and silence our vital opposition to an increasingly fascist government and right-wing mainstream media.
With your help we can continue:
* Holding political and state power to account
* Advocating for the people the system marginalises
* Being a media outlet that upholds the highest standards
* Campaigning on the issues others won’t
* Putting your lives central to everything we do
We are a drop of truth in an ocean of deceit. But we can’t do this without your support. So please, can you help us continue the fight?
-
Show Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to leave a comment.Join the conversationPlease read our comment moderation policy here.
The restraint of the police when faced with right-wing provocation and violence is remarkable, especially when, faced with peaceful left-wing protests, it takes almost nothing for them to pile in.
Yes it is astounding. They must have received instructions from higher up. By contrast to those instructions handed down in 1990:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2eg636
Our heroes in blue didn’t entertain any talking back then. Very disturbing…