‘DITCH CITY SLAVER STATUE’

CARDIFF’S LORD MAYOR LEADS CALLS TO REMOVE STATUE OF ‘SADISTIC SLAVE TRADER’ FROM CITY HALL

THOUSANDS of people are demanding the removal of controversial monuments and statues around the UK, which campaigners describe as “racist and unwelcoming”.

A number of petitions are circling online which have taken inspiration from an anti-racism demonstration in Bristol, which saw protesters topple the statue of slave trader Edward Colston before heaving the bronze monument into the harbour.

It has prompted one English council to remove a pub sign that was likened to a gollywog “with immediate effect”.

With the growing surge in support for the Black Lives Matter movement, which has sparked global protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, petitions have emerged online demanding controversial monuments in the UK are taken down.

One such petition, which has amassed more than 26,000 signatures, demands the removal of a caricature of a black man atop the 18th-century Greenman pub sign in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

The demands have prompted Derbyshire Dales District Council’s decision to remove the monument from the sign.

However, a petition has also been launched which seeks to keep the monument in place, with supporters stating it is a part of history.

On the petition page, which has garnered more than 2,700 signatures, organiser Shaun Redfern described the sign as a tourist attraction which “should be kept because of the history for the town”.

In Edinburgh, a petition was launched to remove the statue of slave owner Henry Dundas in St Andrew Square and for streets bearing his name to be renamed.

Petition organiser and local resident Nancy Barrett, 22, said: “I feel as though Scotland’s involvement in the slave trade has been silently swept under the rug and a lot of people think Scotland is innocent, which isn’t the case.

“The height of the statue alone shows how highly Henry Dundas was thought of when it was erected.

“If it were to be removed it would denounce the glorification of him, and force people to learn about who he really was. The longer it stays up, the longer Scotland is denying its past by refusing to amend something that should have happened years ago.”