Tyson Fury tells Boris Johnson to ‘grow a pair’ after Winston Churchill statue was covered up to prevent graffiti
TYSON FURY has told UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to "grow a pair" after the Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square was covered up.
The site was sprayed with graffiti during last weekend's Black Lives Matter protests in London.
Demonstrations have continued around the world following the shocking death of 46-year-old black man in the US.
Police officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder after he knelt on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes.
Protesters scrawled "was a racist" on the statue of the wartime PM, and "BLM" was written on the Cenotaph too.
And now in a bid to stop such vandalism happening again, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has had the Churchill memorial covered up.
This has not gone down well with WBC heavyweight boxing champion Fury who has blasted the actions of the government and the London Assembly.
The 31-year-old boxer, who recently announced a two-fight deal against fellow Brit Anthony Joshua, shared a photo of Churchill on Instagram and wrote a lengthy caption.
He posted: "This is the great man Sir Winston Churchill, a man who saved millions of lives in the UK and around the world.
"He made it possible to live in the world we know today, don’t forget if Hitler would of won the war there would be no Black, Gypsy, Jew, in Europe as he would of killed them all.
"We owe our lives to this legend of a leader, Sir Winston Churchill I salute you as a patriot of England and the world heavyweight boxing champion & the Gypsy King.
"RIP #worldsgreatestleader @borisjohnsonuk grow a pair. Do not let anyone desecrate our great leader's monument. #ILOVEYOUENGLAND."
It is absurd and shameful that this national monument should today be at risk of attack by violent protestors
PM Boris Johnson
Now Fury will be hoping PM Johnson, who is fuming at the decision to board up Churchill, acts.
In a series of tweets, Johnson wrote: "We cannot now try to edit or censor our past.
"We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations.
"They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults.
"To tear them down would be to lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come.”
And defending his personal wartime hero, Sir Winston, he added: "The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving this country – and the whole of Europe – from a fascist and racist tyranny..
"It is absurd and shameful that this national monument should today be at risk of attack by violent protestors.
"Yes, he sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable to us today, but he was a hero, and he fully deserves his memorial."
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Fury previously used his social media to warn people of the dangers of coronavirus.
He urged the nation to follow government advice and said that he was taking the pandemic "deadly serious" after listening to Johnson.