Winston Churchill was our greatest warrior against racism and protesters’ slur is a disgrace

THE Black Lives Matter cause is important - and the anger is justified. But there was no excuse for the mayhem at last weekend’s anti-racism protests carried out by a small minority.

Amid what was largely a peaceful turnout in London, there were shocking scenes of violence and vandalism from a few, where several police officers were injured - one of them seriously.

In fact, as this aggression unfolded, one demonstrator even tried to burn the Union Jack on the Cenotaph, the monument to all those military heroes who gave their lives for our freedom.

Yet few images were as shocking as the defacement of the statue to Winston Churchill outside Parliament.

With apparent contempt for the achievements of the great man, a select few scored out his name on the plinth and graffitied the slogan “racist” below it.

At the same time, they attached a Black Lives Matter banner to the sculpture. While these protests are, of course, incredibly important, this felt like a mockery of Churchill’s epic record in helping to save humanity from genocidal tyranny.

In defeating Hitler’s murderous Third Reich, I believe Churchill can claim to be the greatest warrior against racism in the 20th century. It is grotesque to paint him as an ally of fascism or defender of oppression.

When the fate of civilisation hung in the balance in 1940, he magnificently led the fight for the light against the dark.

Through his vision and courage, he conquered genuine, murderous bigotry and without his wartime leadership, it is likely that Britain would have reached some sort of peace deal with Nazi Germany.

As a result, the subjugation of Europe would have been strengthened and the Holocaust intensified.

But Churchill’s valour, even when Britain’s position was perilous, began the journey towards the ultimate collapse of Hitler’s regime.

Churchill saved Britain from being crushed under Nazi jackboot

If Churchill had not been in charge, the modern story of mankind would have been very different.

All the liberties we take for granted, including the right to protest, would not exist if the Germans had triumphed.

The London protesters at the weekend shouted about the injustices of modern Britain, but just imagine how cruel our society would have been under the heel of the Nazi jackboot.

That was the nightmarish outcome that Churchill prevented.

He turned out to be correct when he said in his famous “Finest Hour” speech on the eve of the Battle of Britain in 1940, “Hitler knows he will have to break us in this island or lose the war".

Complex man who believed in British rule in India

With his roots in Victorian England and his experience as a soldier in the Empire, Churchill was undoubtedly a complex man, filled with an attitude of British superiority like most of his contemporaries.

He was certainly a strong believer in British rule in India, which led him to despise the nationalist leader Gandhi.

Yet it should be recognised that, after the Second World War he accepted Indian freedom, while he also privately admitted that some of his past feelings about the country were unfair.

Moreover, he was nothing like the reactionary brute that his modern left-wing critics paint. He was far too big, far too humane for that caricature.

This is a man who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, had a rich vein of humour and possessed a unique generosity.

Far from being an ingrained right-winger, he was disliked by many Tories for his radicalism, especially on welfare.

In fact, for twenty years from 1904 he was a leading figure in the Liberal party, and he retained a fondness for Liberalism right to the end of his life.

As the President of the Board of Trade before the First World War, he laid many of the foundations of the modern social security system, including unemployment insurance, labour exchanges and minimum wages in certain trade.

It is telling that during his second premiership in the early 1950s, he did nothing to reverse the great reforms of the previous Labour Government, like the foundation of the NHS.

'Eyes filled over suffering of Jews in Europe'

No one who was really a reactionary could have worked so successfully with Labour during the war, as Churchill did in forming his broad-based coalition in 1940.

He developed a harmonious, fruitful relationship with Labour leader Clement Attlee, whom he made his Deputy Prime Minister.

Attlee was struck by Churchill’s deep sense of compassion, as he wrote to his own brother in 1941:  “He has an extreme sensitiveness to suffering. I remember some years ago, his eyes filled with tears as he spoke of the suffering of the Jews in Germany.”

Those words make a mockery of the argument that Churchill was a vicious racist.

In reality, few politicians of his time were more pro-Jewish, as reflected in his early campaign as an MP for the human rights of Jewish refugees or his belief in the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people.

“Even Winston had a fault. He was too fond of the Jews,” wrote his friend and military aide Sir Edward Spears previously.

But it was exactly this spirit that fuelled his hatred of Nazism.

Churchill was a lifelong advocate of democracy.

He loved the rough-and-tumble of the elections, and trusted the instincts of the people.

Even when he suffered the shock of a landslide defeat by Attlee in 1945, just after the end of the European war, he told a member of his Downing Street staff: “We have no right to feel hurt. This is democracy. This is what we are fighting for.”

Political leaders are no saints. All of them have their flaws.

William Gladstone, the great 19th century Liberal, was born into a merchant’s family that had made money from slavery.

He himself was addicted to rescuing prostitutes, using a sense of Christian mission to cover up the erotic thrill he got from this habit.

Lloyd George, the heroic victor of the First World War, was mired in corruption, most notably through his sale of honours for Liberal party funds.

Even Attlee, so revered by the left, had a streak of ambivalence about Judaism.

Even though his family took in a German Jewish refugee before the war, he himself once privately explained that, as Prime Minister, he refused promotion to two Jewish Labour MPs because “they belonged to the Chosen People and he didn’t think he wanted any more of them".

In a much nastier vein, Gandhi had some very offensive views about black Africans, once describing them as “one degree removed from the animal."

There is a very intolerant mood in Britain right now, and that shines through the announcement today by London Mayor Sadiq Khan that he is going to set up a Commission on Diversity in the Public Realm to review all statues in London.

We need to move in the opposite direction, cherishing the rich, varied fabric of our past.

A nation that allows Churchill, its greatest son, to be smeared as “a racist” has lost all sense of balance.

His political comrade and rival Clement Attlee had it right when he described Churchill, on his death in January 1965, as “the greatest Englishman of our time – and I think, the greatest citizen of the world.”

Those are far more suitable words than the disgusting graffiti.