Pro-Palestine protesters to demand removal of Lloyd George statue

From The Telegraph

Pro-Palestine protesters have called for a statue of David Lloyd George to be torn down because his government supported establishing a Jewish homeland in the Middle East.

Cardiff’s Stop the War coalition is planning a march through the Welsh capital on Saturday to coincide with the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

Arthur Balfour, then foreign secretary, set out intentions to form “a national home for the Jewish people” in a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, which was published on Nov 2 1917.

Protesters claim the declaration marked the beginning of “a century of British meddling in the lives of Palestinians”.

Campaigners will march from Churchill Way to the Lloyd George statue in Gorsedd Gardens, where they will rip up copies of the 67-word declaration.

Adam Johannes, from Cardiff Stop the War Coalition, said: “The Balfour Declaration was the first shot in a century of British meddling in the lives of Palestinians, and the carnage has only intensified.Today, Britain continues to be involved by supplying arms and political support to Israel, enabling bombings ending in tens of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths. It’s time for the people to break our government’s chains of complicity. We call on Cardiff council to urgently remove the Lloyd George statue, as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people who suffered so much as a consequence of his actions, and replace it with a more suitable hero from history.”

Recommending potential replacement statues, he said: “How about a conscientious objector jailed for refusing to fight in the First World War or an Arab freedom fighter?”

It comes after reports Lloyd George’s childhood home was swept into plans to make Wales “anti-racist”, backed by funding from the principality’s Labour Government.

The Welsh former prime minister’s cottage in Llanystumdwy has been converted into a museum, which has since worked with a “decolonisation consultant” to alter its approach to history. The decolonising service, the Bill for which was footed by Labour government grants, hopes to “set the right historic narrative” and “promote a multicultural, vibrant and diverse Wales”.

Lloyd George knew my grandfather – grandfather knew Lloyd George. Seriously, Grandfather did meet Lloyd George in the aftermath of WWI at several Liberal Party events.  They were a very different outfit then. But so far as I know he didn’t know my grandmother and he and his family never owned slaves.