Follow the latest on the aftermath of Black Lives Matter protests and other politics in the UK
- Ministers face backlash after claiming Britain is not racist
- Keir Starmer’s LBC phone-in: summary and analysis
- UK coronavirus updates – live
- US protests updates – live
In an interview with Emma Barnett on Radio 5 Live the former Labour cabinet minister Lord Mandelson said that the police should arrest those responsible for bringing down the Edward Colston statue in Bristol. What happened amounted to “mob rule”, he implied. He told the programme:
Personally I’m not going to shed a tear for that statue. Personally I regard the history surrounding it as completely disgusting, but … I find mob rule very disturbing indeed, and if we’re going to let it go this time, where is it going to go next? Who is going to be taken on, what’s going to be toppled, who is going to take these decisions into their own hands, regardless of the views of other people?
Because otherwise, you’re just giving the green light for the same sort of action and mob rule that anyone else wants to do, take the law into their own hands, and do as they please. I mean, that’s the law of the jungle, isn’t it?
Continue reading…