After a campaign by a left-wing mob, contractors refused to remove a statue of the founder of the Scouting movement in the UK after locals rallied to protect it.
After the statue of Lord Baden-Powell, which is situated in Poole Quay in Dorset, was put on a list of “racist” statues to be toppled by leftist extremists, the local council announced it would be temporarily removed and put into storage in order to “protect” it.
“We know that local people feel proud of Lord Baden-Powell’s and the Scout movement’s links with Poole, and that some people feel that we would be giving in to the protesters by temporarily removing the statue. However, we feel it is responsible to protect it for future generations to enjoy and respect,” a town councillor said.
However, when a group of local residents showed up to defend the statue and contractors refused to remove it while people were present, local authorities were forced to back down.
One elderly man even vowed, “I will fight you” when asked by a Sky News reporter how he felt about attempts to remove the statue.
British public defending cultural heritage in Poole.
Baden-Powell statue now not being removed today. pic.twitter.com/qJuakSQVyo
— Michael Heaver (@Michael_Heaver) June 11, 2020
A petition launched to protect the statue has now received over 21,000 signatures in just a matter of hours.
The statue was targeted for removal by left-wing mobs after they claimed Baden-Powell had expressed sympathies with Nazis and the Hitler Youth.
However, as Oliver JJ Lane documents, this is completely false.
“The BBC reported the comments of historian Tim Jeal who said while Baden-Powell admired the Germans for encouraging young people to live an outdoor life, he ultimately “condemned Hitler for being a megalomaniac and for mounting what he called ‘huge pageants for hypnotising his people’”.
“Further casting doubt on the claims, the article cited academic Dr Andrew Norman who noted that should the Nazis have been able to invade England in the 1940s, Baden-Powell was on the list of senior British figures they intended to execute, as a potential threat to the occupation. Baden-Powell had, after all, partly set up the Scouting movement to help young Britons to grow up capable of defending their homeland from external threats if required.”
Baden-Powell was also widely recognized as a hero for his efforts during the Boer War during which he opened up soup kitchens to help feed 2,000 black Africans in Mafeking.
As we highlighted earlier this week, leftists in the UK also expressed their desire to topple a statue of Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, a former British Prime Minister, despite the fact that he oversaw the abolition of slavery in the British empire.
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