Pro-Palestine protesters to demand removal of Lloyd George statue
Pro-Palestine protesters have called for a statue of David Lloyd George to be torn down because his government supported establishing a Jewish homeland in the Middle East.
Cardiff’s Stop the War coalition is planning a march through the Welsh capital on Saturday to coincide with the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
Arthur Balfour, then foreign secretary, set out intentions to form “a national home for the Jewish people” in a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, which was published on Nov 2 1917.
Protesters claim the declaration marked the beginning of “a century of British meddling in the lives of Palestinians”.
Campaigners will march from Churchill Way to the Lloyd George statue in Gorsedd Gardens, where they will rip up copies of the 67-word declaration.
Adam Johannes, from Cardiff Stop the War Coalition, said: “The Balfour Declaration was the first shot in a century of British meddling in the lives of Palestinians, and the carnage has only intensified.
“Today, Britain continues to be involved by supplying arms and political support to Israel, enabling bombings ending in tens of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths.
“It’s time for the people to break our government’s chains of complicity. “
It comes after Cardiff councillors were successfully persuaded to remove a statue of 19th century slave owner, Thomas Picton, from City Hall in 2020.
Mr Johannes said: “We call on Cardiff council to urgently remove the Lloyd George statue, as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people who suffered so much as a consequence of his actions, and replace it with a more suitable hero from history.”
Recommending potential replacement statues, he said: “How about a conscientious objector jailed for refusing to fight in the First World War or an Arab freedom fighter?”
‘Imperialist legacy’
The anti-war organiser urged protesters to challenge Lloyd George’s “imperialist legacy”, citing the “thousands of young men” that were killed in the trenches during the war.
Cardiff’s Stop the War coalition claims it is not attempting to erase history, but rather stoke a public debate over who shapes the historical narrative.
In 2007, playwright Harold Pinter and former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Denis Halliday protested against the erection of a Lloyd George statue in London’s Parliament Square alleging his legacy was one of being a warmonger, imperialist and racist.
It comes after reports Lloyd George’s childhood home was swept into plans to make Wales “anti-racist”, backed by funding from the principality’s Labour Government.
The Welsh former prime minister’s cottage in Llanystumdwy has been converted into a museum, which has since worked with a “decolonisation consultant” to alter its approach to history.
The decolonising service, the Bill for which was footed by Labour government grants, hopes to “set the right historic narrative” and “promote a multicultural, vibrant and diverse Wales”.