Statues have sparked debate for a number of years now as more people have become conscious to the fact that a number of them have been erected to memorialise people that probably shouldn't be remembered too fondly. Some of the biggest examples of this in recent years were Confederate soldier statues in the United States coming under fire (rightfully so), and here in Britain we've had a statue of Edward Colston, who made a fortune in the slave trade, being torn down and thrown into a river in Bristol.
One event that seemed to galvanise people against statue defacement in the UK was during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, in which the words 'was a racist' were spraypainted on the plinth of a statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square. Since then the statue has received added protection during events, up to the point of having police officers form a protective ring around it; lest someone dare come within a foot of something so vitally important.
Winston Churchill is a figure that has become mythologised in Britain to the point where any talk of critiquing the man, or exploring the well documented facts of his life that cast him in a poor light will likely get you shut down on the spot. The Prime Minister during World War Two, Churchill was indeed important to the war effort, and the defeat of the Nazis, but has been transformed into a figure that some believe was so vital to that cause that without him the Nazis would have won, and is therefore immune to criticism or hate. This completely ignored the very real harms that Churchill committed during his lifetime.
'Keep England White' was a Churchill campaign slogan during the 1955 elections. He talked about how white people were a 'stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place' in reference to the destruction of indigenous peoples in countries like North America, Australia, and Palestine. He said that 'Indians breed like rabbits', and oversaw the Bengal Famine, in which three million people starved to death. He expressed his disgust of Asian people in 1954, saying 'I hate people with slit eyes and pigtails'. Churchill pushed colonialism as a form of 'help' for those that were conquered, saying 'by conquering and dominating other peoples, the British were also elevating and protecting them'.
Churchill also believed in eugenics, and pushed for the forced sterilisation of those deemed 'feeble minded'. He wrote openly about his views on the matter, even going so far as to send a letter to the then Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, in which he described the presence of these 'feeble minded' people as 'a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate'. Churchill also played roles in people being sent to concentration camps in multiple countries, and there are some claims that he even supported the killing of 20,000 Kenyans in one such camp following the mau mau revolt.
So we have a man who held awful, racist views and wasn't afraid to share them. A man who wanted to force sterilise people he didn't like. A man who put people into camps. A man who oversaw a famine that claimed the lives of millions. A man who if he was anyone but the man who was in charge of Britain during the fight against the Nazis would be as villainised as they were. Unfortunately, Britain is so steeped in the vestiges of colonialism, it's racist history, and 'wartime nostalgia' that Churchill is seen as a hero despite his awful actions.
Today a new law has passed that would make climbing on the statue of Churchill that stands in Parliament Square a criminal offence, one that could land you with a £1,000 fine, and three months in prison. Whilst the statue is not an official war memorial, it will now be protected under the Crime and Policing Bill.
The Conservative Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer (let's be honest, he's basically a Tory), said 'Sir Winston Churchill stands at the summit of our country’s greatest heroes, and has been an inspiration to every prime minister that has followed him. The justifiable fury that is provoked when people use his statue as a platform for their protests speaks to the deep and enduring love that all decent British people have for Sir Winston. It is the least we owe him, and the rest of the greatest generation, to make those acts criminal.'
'But Amy, what does this have to do with trans people?' I hear you ask. Well, a month ago the UK Supreme Court made a ruling on the definition of woman as it pertains to the Equality Act 2010, and things have gotten very bad for trans people since then. Anti-trans campaigners have called this a victory for their side, with some even being so satisfied that trans people are finished that they've moved on to campaigning against immigrants. Organisations have used this ruling as an excuse to bring in new rules that discriminate against trans people. Some places have even enacted segregation-like tactics, forcing trans people into their own facilities that effectively force them to out themselves as trans and make their lives more dangerous. And throughout all of this Starmer and his government have remained either silent on the matter, or have come down on the side of bigots.
The UK government could shut this down, they could see that this ruling from the Supreme Court has put trans people in danger and change the laws to make it safe for us. They could condemn those calling for our rights to be taken away. They could be doing literally anything. But they're not. They're allowing this, and even making it worse. Let's not forget that this is the same government that decided that puberty blockers were super dangerous and had to be banned, but only for trans kids of course, cis kids could use them without any problem.
The British government doesn't like trans people. The voices within it that are standing up for us are few and far between, and most of the people in power either hate us, don't care enough to say anything, or will back any view that seems loud and popular to advance their own career. That's why the people who are calling for the eradication of trans peoples lives are given a free pass, and why the people who are kicking and screaming about the safety of statues of racist war criminals are listened to. Hell, they're the same type of old, white, hate filled fuckers. Even Starmer's statement that 'all decent British people' love Churchill frames those who disagree as indecent, terrible people. But why wouldn't this 'Labour' frame people that way?
The British government cares more about a statue than the thousands of lives it's putting on the line every single day to appease bigots. This is Britain in 2025, a Britain where the establishment seems to still hold many of the views they'd rather you not know Churchill had.
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