PROTESTERS planning to remove a statue of Sir Robert Peel in Glasgow as part of a Topple the Racists campaign, have got the wrong man, it has emerged.
Black Lives Matter protesters have vowed the monument dedicated to Sir Robert Peel, the two-time prime minister whose father had links to the slave trade, "must fall".
In the wake of protests over the death of George Floyd in the US, local campaigns and online petitions have featured demands for universities, a hospital and councils to take down statues of individuals linked to the slave trade or to re-label buildings named after them.
A George Square event to remove one statue planned by Glasgow Youth Art Collective, is set to take place at 1pm on Sunday.
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Supporters of The Black Lives Matter movement have produced a crowd-sourced map which displays more than 50 statues of historical figures which are said to 'celebrate slavery and racism'.
It has gone live days after a statue to former slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol was torn down and dumped in a harbour.
But the targeting of Peel Jr, also regarded as the father of modern British policing, has led to an angry reaction and a counter-petition about similar toppling plans elsewhere.
Opponents have been convinced they have confused him with his less famous father - who was also called Sir Robert Peel.
The online Glasgow citation describes Sir Robert Peel as "Conservative PM (1834-35 and 1841-46) and creator of the modern police force. Actively petitioned against the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill".
But according to parliamentary records, it was his father who was also Sir Robert Peel, who opposed the bill in 1806 seeing it as a threat to the cotton industry.
The Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill prevented the importation of slaves by British traders into territories belonging to foreign powers.
Peel Sr raised the petition highlighting the risk it presented to the merchants and their trade interests.
Peel Sr's own firm, Peel, Yateses, Halliwell & Co., signed the petition together with other merchants and manufacturers. It was presented to the House of Lords on May 13, 1806.
In the event the bill was passed on 23 May, 1806, when Peel Jr, was just 18.
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The online Topple The Racists citation (above) appears now to have been removed.
The Glasgow statue to Peel Jr was vandalised by protesters earlier this week and now protest organisers say they want to see it go.
In support of the George Square event, organisers said: "With racist statues being toppled in Bristol and Belgium within the last couple days, Glasgow must make its mark and demand better of our city.
"Robert Peel well known racist and founder of the police and the Tory party does not belong in George Square - we the people demand working class heroes and famous BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] Scots are put up instead that celebrate our city's wonderful diversity and struggle of workers rights.
"We will be following the tactics of Bristol having lots of people, they can’t arrest us all and with the new administration of Glasgow and the Scottish government not wanting to look bad this can go ahead!"
The petition from Manufacturers and Merchants of Manchester against the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill
Meanwhile, a second Black Lives Matter protest is set to take take place in Edinburgh this weekend at a monument tipped to be torn down and "dumped in the Forth".
Demonstrators are being urged to meet at the Melville Monument in St Andrew Square from 12pm on Saturday.
Edinburgh Council leader Adam McVey has said he would feel "no sense of loss" if Melville Monument, which commemorates Henry Dundas, was removed.
Meanwhile a Government minister has called for decisions over the future of controversial statues of historical figures to be taken democratically as pressure mounts on authorities to remove contentious monuments.
Business minister Nadhim Zahawi said that people should be able to examine the UK’s history “warts and all” without a feeling of “self loathing” and forgetting “the good things we’ve done”.
His comments follow the pulling down of the statue of Colston in Bristol on Sunday by campaigners at an anti-racism protest and the local authority-approved removal of the statue of slave owner Robert Milligan in London’s Docklands on Tuesday evening.
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