Brexit leader Nigel Farage has condemned “Marxists” for “hijacking” the protests related to the killing of London woman Sarah Everard, after a memorial to the Second World War was defaced with graffiti declaring “ACAB” (“all cops are bastards”) and branding Sir Winston Churchill a “racist”.
Hundreds of people had gathered in Westminster, London, for the third day to demonstrate alleged heavy-handed policing at the vigil for 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, whose remains were found in an Ashford woodland last week. A serving London police officer has been charged with her murder and appeared in court this week.
The Sun reported that some protesters had defaced the memorial on the Victoria Embankment honouring the dead airmen who fought in the Battle of Britain, scrawling “ACAB” above the plaques bearing the names of the men who gave their lives to defeat fascism.
Far-left activists also scratched out the name under a quote of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, writing underneath with arrows pointing above, “racist” — the same allegation branded twice on Churchill’s Parliament Square statue plinth, once by Black Lives Matter (BLM) and then by Extinction Rebellion activists in the summer of 2020.
The tabloid also reported scuffles between police and protesters, with demonstrators throwing objects at officers.
Commenting on the report, Nigel Farage said on Wednesday: “More desecration of war monuments and the Churchill statue in London overnight. The Marxists among us are now playing the anti-police card after hijacking Sarah Everard’s murder.”
Earlier this week, the Metropolitan Police Federation described events meant to remember and honour Sarah Everard as having been “hijacked” by far-left infiltrators from Antifa, Extinction Rebellion, and Black Lives Matter.
Following widespread criticism related to the alleged heavy-handed policing of Saturday’s vigil at Clapham Common, Police Federation Ken Marsh said that the vast majority of peace mourners had left the area before officers took action, describing how 26 of his colleagues had been assaulted by the far-leftists who remained.
Mr Marsh continued: “One black female officer was racially abused. An individual was arrested. This is unfortunately what happens with things like this. They get hijacked.”
The word “hijacked” was also adopted by a friend of Sarah Everard’s, who said that her friend “would have been unsettled at how her death has been politicised” and used to further the hatred of men and police.
Writing for the libertarian Spiked online magazine, Helena Edwards said that she had decided against going to Saturday’s vigil because her “friend’s tragic death has been hijacked. It is not a tribute to her any more, it’s about something else – and I don’t like what it has become.”
Describing her friend as a “humble, private, and sensible person”, Ms Edwards added that Sarah would not have wanted “men in general, to be smeared with the same brush as her attacker. Most people, and indeed men, are good.”
Praising the efforts of police during the investigation, she also criticised the likes of a Green Party peer who raised putting men under a curfew, and said that “the misuse” of her friend’s death “by those with an ‘agenda’ is not a comfort to us”.
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