![\"Pic:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/skynews-churchill-westminster_7176552.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square in Westminster was defaced overnight with “Zionist war criminal” and other graffiti.<\/p>\n
A 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage.<\/p>\n
Officers from the Metropolitan Police were alerted shortly after 4am on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
Other phrases including “Stop the Genocide” and “Free Palestine” were sprayed in red paint on the bronze sculpture.<\/p>\n
Further graffiti read “Never again is Now” and “Globalise the Intifada”.<\/p>\n
The statue has been cordoned off and was being cleaned this morning.<\/p>\n
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Image:
\n Pic: PA<\/p>\n
Commenting on the image, which was shared on X, Dave Rich, director of policy for Community Security Trust, posted: “Free Palestine” and a Hamas red triangle, if you zoom in close enough. This extremism is never just a threat to Jews.”<\/p>\n
Read more from Sky News: The 12ft-tall statue on the north-east corner of the square, created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, was unveiled in 1973 by the former prime minister’s wife, Lady Clementine Churchill.<\/p>\n It is one of 12 statues on or around Parliament Square, most of well-known statesmen such as Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln.<\/p>\n The former prime minister’s statue has been vandalised several times over the years, including during demonstrations.<\/p>\n Image: Last December both the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police announced anyone chanting “globalise the intifada” would face arrest.<\/p>\n The decision by the two police forces came in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack, and the terror attack at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on 2 October.<\/p>\n The Metropolitan Police and Westminster City Council have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square in Westminster was defaced overnight with “Zionist war criminal”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-448295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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We are in a new era of multi-party politics<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Pic:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/skynews-churchill-westminster_7176542.jpg\")
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\n Pic: PA<\/p>\n