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‘Those Protests Were Dreadful’: Cabinet Member Slams Black Lives Matter Demonstrations In UK

Photo by ISABEL INFANTES/AFP via Getty Images

Julia Canzano Contributor
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Priti Patel, the U.K. secretary of state for the Home Department, said Black Lives Matter protests were “dreadful” and that she did not support the way that group protested.

She was expressing her displeasure with the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the country during the summer of 2020 in a radio interview Friday morning.

“There are other ways in which people can express their opinions, protesting in the way that people did last summer was not the right way at all … I didn’t support the protests. Those protests were dreadful.”

She added that she “saw policing as well coming under a great deal of pressure from some of the protest.”

She clarified to say that she supports protests as a right, but not those specific ones.

When asked if she would take a knee, Patel responded, “No, I wouldn’t, and I would not have done at the time either.”

The British protested throughout England to fight racial discrimination and police brutality in reaction to the death of George Floyd in the U.S. During the protests, a statue of Winston Churchill was defaced and covered up with the words “was a racist.” Other statues in Britain have been defaced or removed. In response, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced the creation of a commission to improve diversity in the public space. (RELATED: Winston Churchill Statue Covered Up After London Protests)

“Quite frankly I didn’t support that attempt to rewrite history. I felt that that was wrong,” she said.