British PM pledges action to cut inequality
Boris Johnson has pledged to set up a commission that will report on racial inequalities across Britain as protests took place over the weekend.
The prime minister said it would look at ‘‘all aspects of inequality – in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life’’.
The inquiry, to be overseen by Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minis- ter, will produce recommenda- tions for the government by the end of the year. It will be headed by an independent officer and include a mix of people from a variety of ethnic and social backgrounds.
Johnson warned Britain not to ‘‘Photoshop’’ its history by removing controversial statues. He vowed to fight with ‘‘every breath in my body’’ to ensure that the statue of Churchill remained in Parliament Square.
Referring to protests on Saturday, he wrote in The Daily
‘‘It was right that a good number should have been arrested. They were aggressive towards the police. They were patently racist. There is nothing that can excuse their behaviour.’’ The pledge came as support was growing for a law to make vandalism of war memorials a criminal offence. Ministers were considering changes that would lead to jail sentences of up to 10 years for desecrating the monuments.
Nick ThomasSymonds, the shadow home secretary, signalled Labour’s support for the measure on the day that police confirmed the arrest of 113 far-right activists. The selfstyled ‘‘statue defenders’’ were held during violent protests that injured 23 police officers.
A Desecration of War Memorials Bill is to be presented to the Commons on June 23 with the support of 125 Conservative MPs.
If passed, the law would state that ‘‘a person who without lawful excuse destroys, damages or desecrates a war memorial shall be guilty of an offence’’. The text of the bill proposes that it would carry a penalty of ‘‘imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years’’, a fine or both. Thomas-Symonds told Sky
News: ‘‘I would support the government in creating a specific offence of protecting war memorials and I would . . . work with the government on that.’’
Thousands of people gathered on Sunday for peaceful protests in Leeds, Telford and Cardiff to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Violence broke out on Saturday, however, when an estimated 3000 people from farright groups, including Britain First and the Democratic Football
Lads Alliance, converged on London.
They said their aim was to protect the Cenotaph on Whitehall and the statue of Churchill. They ended up throwing punches, glass bottles and flares at lines of police officers. Commander Bas Javid, of the Metropolitan Police, said: ‘‘The scenes officers encountered across central London were utterly shocking. Mindless hooliganism such as this is unacceptable.’’
John Apter, chairman of the Police Federation representing frontline officers, called for a ban on protests ‘‘whilst we are under the threat of this virus’’.
Police also said that Andy Banks, 28, of Essex, was charged with outraging public decency after an image was shared online of a man appearing to urinate within inches of a memorial erected to PC Keith Palmer, who was murdered in the 2017 Westminster terrorism attack.
Clashes broke out in Leeds when far-right activists charged at anti-racism protesters who were leaving a peaceful gathering of 2000 people in the Millennium Square.