BORIS Johnson today tore into the “growing minority” of violent thugs who have “hijacked” peaceful Black Lives Matter protests and caused damage to statues and attacked the police.
The PM spoke out today after statues of Sir Winston Churchill and other famous leaders had to be boarded up ahead of expected clashes this weekend between protesters and extremists.
Black Lives Matter groups have cancelled a planned protest in central London, but there are fears many people will turn up anyway.
Speaking on a visit to a testing centre in Milton Keynes, the PM said people acting illegally would face the “full force of the law”.
He added: “What makes me sad is that the statue of Churchill, who is a national hero, had had to be boarded up for fear of violent attack.
“That is to me, absurd and wrong, you should not have a situation where people who are protesting are attacking people or public property.
“What has happened is a tiny minority, a growing minority have hijacked them.
“They are using them as a pretext to attack the police, to cause violence and to cause damage to public property.”
And he urged people not to attend this weekend, saying: “My message to everybody is that for all sorts of reasons – they should not go.”
The PM insisted that hundreds of arrests had already been made and more were on the way.
“The culprits may think they have got away with it, they haven’t,” he insisted.
“We will bring them to justice, they will face the full force of the law.
“It is not acceptable to attack police officers, let alone a statute of Winston Churchill.”
Boris insisted the country had made huge steps forward to tackle racism and insisted “we should look at the positive stuff” too.
