£40k clean-up for MoD after Pro-Palestine paint stunt
THE Ministry of Defence spent £40,000 removing red paint sprayed on its walls by pro-Palestine protesters last month, the Mail can reveal.
Youth Demand and Palestine Action carried out the stunt in Whitehall as party of its campaign demanding that both the Conservative Party and Labour pledge to impose a ban on selling arms to Israel.
With specialist cleaners required to leach the paint out of the stonework and a water supply installed specifically for the work, the repair bill for the MoD hit £40,000, figures released under Freedom of Information laws show.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps hopes to recover the costs through civil prosecutions, which he has ordered his department to pursue.
A source told the Mail: ‘The taxpayer should not have to pay a penny to clean up the criminal and wholly unpatriotic damage from this childish PR stunt.
‘That’s why the Defence Secretary has ordered the MoD to pursue civil prosecutions of those responsible to recover the entire cost. Crimes like this can’t go unpunished – that’s why the perpetrators were right to be arrested and why they must pick up the bill.
‘This was not only a criminal stunt but a self-defeating one as the men and women in our Ministry of Defence have been working night and day to save lives in the region.’ At the time of the protest, Mr Shapps posted on X/Twitter: ‘Those inside @DefenceHQ stand up to dictators & terrorists every day – patriots, many of whom put their lives at risk to protect us all. Those targeting us today are the opposite, cowardly criminals who I’m glad to see arrested.’