Fury as ‘Woke’ Colston Plaque Condemns His ‘Prominent Role in Slavery’

A new plaque on the empty plinth of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol condemns his “prominent role in the enslavement of African people”.

The plaque, installed on Wednesday evening, removes any mention of Colston as a “benefactor” to the city.

Instead, it emphasises his “prominent role in the enslavement of African people”, adding that the statue is now in “the collections of Bristol City Council’s museums”.

It comes five years after the statue was toppled and dumped into the River Avon by Black Lives Matter protesters following the murder of George Floyd during the Covid lockdown.

The plaque provoked criticism from Arron Banks, the Reform UK candidate for West of England, who branded it “woke nonsense”.

“Colston was a complex character of his time, he made money from slavery and then donated nearly all of it back to good causes,” he told the Telegraph.

“He was a man of his time. The British were the first proper country to declare slavery illegal and enforce it world wide with the British Navy.

“The black live matters idiots choose to celebrate the life of a criminal who held up pregnant women in the street as their hero. Their movement was exposed when their leaders pocketed the cash for themselves.

“As Mayor I’ll pull the statue out of the river and put it back up. I’ll then write to the cowardly governors Colston grammar and request they reinstate the name. We shouldn’t be rewriting British or Bristol history for anyone.

“This woke nonsense has to end.”

The new plaque reads: “On 13 November, 1895, a statue of Edward Colston (1636-1721) was unveiled here.

“In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the celebration of Colston was increasingly challenged given his prominent role in the enslavement of African people.

“On 7 June 2020, the statue was pulled down during Black Lives Matter protests and rolled into the Floating Harbour.

“Following consultation with the city in 2021, the statue entered the collections of Bristol City Council ’s museums.”

It sits below an original plaque from 130 years ago which describes Mr Colston as “one of the most virtuous and wise sons of the city” and was agreed after several re-writes, drafts and arguments at City Hall between councillors.

In November, Conservative city councillor Richard Eddy voted against the revision, calling it “utterly shameful”.

He said at the time: “Deleting the reference to Edward Colston, one of Bristol’s greatest sons, being a benefactor is outrageous – an utterly historical revision that is worthy of the Nazis.”

At a meeting last year, Cllr Eddy described the people who pulled down the statue in 2020 as a “mob of criminals and hooligans” for “vandalising” a listed monument.

The “Colston Four”, as they came to be known, openly admitted their involvement in removing the statue, insisting that they had committed no crime.

They argued that their actions had been justified because the statue was a hate crime to the people of Bristol because of Colston’s links to the slave trade.

A lengthy police investigation eventually led to nine people being interviewed, five of whom were offered conditional discharges, while four were charged with criminal damage.

Who are the ‘Colston Four’?

The idea for another plaque to be attached to the plinth was never dropped, even after the statue was toppled in 2020, and was brought back to the council in 2023 and into 2024 by the then Labour administration, before councillors finally voted to approve it last November.

The wording of the plaque was finally agreed after work by the Bristol Legacy Foundation, but councillors made changes and objected to it at several meetings in 2023 and 2024.

It is the fourth plaque to be created for the plinth: one was fitted unofficially in the 2010s as part of protests against the celebration of Colston, while another was created but never installed due to the watering down of its wording.