Removing statues of controversial figures is ‘to lie about our history’, Johnson says

British prime minster Boris Johnson has said that removing statues of controversial figures is “to lie about our history”, as he argued that national protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd had been taken over by extremists. In a lengthy Twitter thread reacting to the boarding-up of the Cenotaph in Whitehall and Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square, the prime minister expressed anger at the targeting of monuments. Scaffolding was erected around the Churchill statue, the Cenotaph on Whitehall and statues of George Washington and King James II on Trafalgar Square late on Thursday evening on the order of the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, amid concerns they could be targeted by...