The Black Lives Matter-inspired culture war on Britain’s history is continuing as a school named for English naval hero Sir Francis Drake is set to be rebranded after bosses decided he “sat at odds with the values of our school.”
Drake, who lived from 1540 to early 1596, is best remembered as a great seaman who circumnavigated the globe and saved his country from invasion by defeating the infamous Spanish Armada — but earlier in life he had been involved in the slave trade, at the time an accepted norm not just in Europe but in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
Nevertheless, the Governing Body of Sir Francis Drake Primary School — roughly equivalent to an American elementary school — in Sadiq Khan’s London has decided that “the slave trade links associated with the current name sat at odds with the values of our school” and they will therefore be changing it to Twin Oaks Primary, supposedly with the backing of most pupils, parents, and nearby residents who responded to a consultation on the name change.
How free and fair this consultation process really was is somewhat questionable, however, as newsletters published on the school’s website prior to the consultation said it had already “made the decision to rename our school”, with children being given lessons on Drake “so that they can understand the reasons behind this decision” and teachers “working closely with them on what our school’s new name should be.”
Some of the lessons described in subsequent newsletters included “read[ing] a story all about a character that travels to a land that doesn’t belong to them and is very disrespectful”, suggesting the highly ethnically diverse school population’s decision to back the name change may not have been free of teacher influence.
“Britain is blessed with an abundant and fascinating history, but we are now destroying all traces of it merely to satisfy a handful of ‘Year Zero’ activists sitting in self-righteous judgement of our past,” said Robert Poll, of the Save Our Statues campaign, in comments to Breitbart London on the move.
“And, yet again, we see them imposing their divisive ideology through impressionable young children who, like turkeys voting for Christmas, will be the ultimate losers when their history and collective national identity is erased,” he added.