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International Desk: Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was setting up a commission to look at \u201call aspects of inequality\u201d following race protests across Britain.<\/p>\nInternational Desk: Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was setting up a commission to look at \u201call aspects of inequality\u201d following race protests across Britain.<\/p>\n
Writing in the Telegraph newspaper on Monday, Johnson said there was \u201cmuch more that we need to do\u201d to tackle racism despite \u201chuge progress\u201d, and argued the \u201csubstance\u201d of the problem needed to be addressed, rather than the \u201csymbols\u201d.<\/p>\n
There have been Black Lives Matter demonstrations in cities across the United Kingdom since the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in the United States on May 25, and Saturday saw far-right groups gather in London to counter the anti-racism demonstrators.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is time for a cross-governmental commission to look at all aspects of inequality \u2014 in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life,\u201d Johnson wrote in the article, which was also published online late on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to tackle the substance of the problem, not the symbols.\u201d<\/p>\n
Race campaigners have called for the removal of statues depicting some historical figures, and the toppling of a statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston in the southwestern port city of Bristol is considered a defining moment in Britain\u2019s Black Lives Matter movement.<\/p>\n
But Johnson insisted a bronze sculpture of wartime leader Winston Churchill \u2014 who some activists say was racist \u2014 outside the British parliament in Westminster should remain in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to address the present, not attempt to rewrite the past \u2013 and that means we cannot and must not get sucked into never-ending debate about which well-known historical figure is sufficiently pure or politically correct to remain in public view,\u201d the prime minister wrote.<\/p>\n
Johnson condemned the \u201cthugs\u201d who gathered in central London on Saturday to \u201cprotect\u201d the boarded-up statue of Churchill, which has been defaced in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was utterly absurd that a load of far-Right thugs and bovver boys this weekend converged on London with a mission to protect the statue of Winston Churchill,\u201d the 55-year-old premier and Churchill biographer wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a hero, and I expect I am not alone in saying that I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square, and the sooner his protective shielding comes off the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson suggested that instead of tearing down statues, more should be built of people regarded \u201cworthy of memorial\u201d by the current generation.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister has been branded racist himself following a 2002 article for the Telegraph in which he referred to black people as \u201cpiccaninnies\u201d with \u201cwatermelon smiles\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International Desk: Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was setting up a commission to look at \u201call aspects of inequality\u201d following race protests across Britain. Writing in the Telegraph newspaper on Monday, Johnson said there was \u201cmuch more that we need to do\u201d to tackle racism despite \u201chuge progress\u201d, and argued the \u201csubstance\u201d of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":59897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,14],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n