Piers Morgan has thrown his support behind the Black Lives Matter protesters who pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston.
There has been an ongoing debate whether or not the 17th century statue should be removed from Bristol after critics said it celebrates colonialism.
And during the current global demonstrations, the figure came crashing to the ground and rolled into a river following the death of George Floyd.
Talking about the monumental moment, the Good Morning Britain host shared his views on what happened, and compared it to the statue of Sir Winston Churchill, which was also vandalised during the marches this weekend.
‘The bottom line with the Churchill statue is if that’s what you want the image to be from the protests with Goerge Floyd then there’s something wrong with you,’ he explained on the breakfast show.
‘You’re not going to bring anyone with you on any campaign and attempt to change for the better if you desecrate Sir Winston Churchill.
Acknowledging that the former Prime Minister ‘wasn’t perfect’, the 55-year-old continued: ‘He said some racially inflamitary things, there is no question of that, but he saved the world and this country from Adolf Hitler, a Nazi, one of the worst racists in history.’
Turning his attention to Colston, the controversial journalist added: ‘There’s a complete difference between Edward Colston and Winston Churchill, one saved us from the Nazis and one made a fortune off the slave trade and used that fortune to invest into the community.
‘He was using slave trade money to do it and time has moved on, history I’m afraid will judge him on the slave ownership and trading more than what he did for the community.
‘That statue became an emblem for the community in Bristol for them to walk past every day and them to go, “that guy used to own us, that guy used to trade us, that guy led to 19,000 black people dying in the transportation of slaves and we have a statue of him in the middle of Bristol, celebrating this guy?”
‘He was a slave owner and slave trader – it’s a big debate if you want the picture of Churchill being defaced as your image from the protest march it is going to annoy a lot of people in this country, it will detract from what you’re trying to achieve.’
He added: ‘The Colston statue removal I get that, I think you could have brought a lot of people with you on that. Many would have said, “yeah, this day an age it is wrong to be celebrating a slave owner and slave trader.”
‘I saw some people on Twitter, they were more angry that a slave owner statue had been dumped in the water than they were about Geroge Floyd’s murder. They thought that was the bigger issue.
‘If that is what you’re thinking, your priorities are wrong, be more angry about George Floyd than a slave trader statue being dumped.
‘It shouldn’t have been up there anyway.’
Good Morning Britain continues weekdays at 6am on ITV.
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