The former prime minister’s statue has been vandalised several times in the past, including during protests.
In June 2020 it was scrawled with graffiti accusing Churchill of being a racist, during a Black Lives Matter protest triggered by the death of George Floyd in the US.
Later that year, in October, an Extinction Rebellion activist was ordered to pay more than £1,500 for defacing the statue by painting “racist” on its plinth during a climate protest.
The 12ft (3.6m) monument, created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, was unveiled in 1973 by the wartime prime minister’s widow Lady Churchill.
It is one of 12 statues on or around Parliament Square, most of well-known statesmen such as Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.