The former Corbyn candidate behind the campaign to remove Baden-Powell’s statue tweeted ‘if you’re white, I don’t give a sh** about your issues with BLM protests’ as the local council was poised to take it down.
It comes as a Liberal Democrat council leader joined calls for a local museum to put its exhibition of the Scouts founder online.
The former Labour candidate Corrie Drew – who stood for the party in 2019 – is among those demanding the removals of statues across the country.
The statue was due to be pulled down by council workers at 7.30am this morning but the crew stayed away fearing a ‘circus’ after news of its removal prompted angry protests by former Scouts and locals.
She said today: ‘Our people deserve better than a monument to Baden Powell. His starting of the scouting movement can be no excuse for his documented homophobia, racism and enthusiastic support of Hitler’.
Pictured: Vikki Slade, right, the Lib Dem council leader and, right campaigner Corrie Drew
Rover Scout Matthew Trott salutes a statue of Robert Baden-Powell on Poole Quay in Dorset ahead of its expected removal to ‘safe storage’ following concerns about his actions while in the military and ‘Nazi sympathies’
This morning she also tweeted: ‘I’d like to state, in the strongest terms possible: If you’re white, I don’t give a sh** about your issues with the BlackLivesMatter protest or movement. We haven’t endured lifelong abuse & discrimination because of our skin colour. Support or shut up.’
It follows Black Lives Matter protesters tearing down the statue of slave holder Edward Colston in Bristol on Sunday, and a memorial to Robert Milligan being removed from London docklands on Tuesday.
Former scouts today vowed to defend the seaside statue of Robert Baden-Powell due to be hauled down later after Black Lives Matter protesters branded him racist, homophobic and fascist as the campaign to remove approaching 80 historic monuments in Britain hurtles on.
Local residents gather by a statue of Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout movement, is pictured on the promenade in Bournemouth
Local residents show their support for a statue of Robert Baden-Powell on Poole Quay in Dorset this morning
People are seen putting a face mask onto a statue of Robert Baden-Powell in Poole, the statue is due to be removed following protests against the death of George Floyd who died in police custody in Minneapolis
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council leader Vikki Slade, a Liberal Democrat, says the statue on Poole Quay facing Brownsea Island where the first scout camp was held in 1907 will be taken down immediately and put in ‘safe storage’.
The council tried to shift the blame to remove the statue onto the police today. BCP council, run by an alliance of Lib Dem, Labour, Green and Independent councillors, said they took the decision after Dorset Police advised them to remove it ‘to minimise the risk of any public disorder or anti-social behaviour’ after chaos in Bristol when a bronze of slave trader Edward Colston was torn down on Sunday.
However the force said it only provided advice after the council approached them, saying it was a ‘potential target’ – and the Scout Association suggested it had no knowledge of the council’s plans until after a decision was made.
There is fury over the statue’s planned removal today with former Queen’s Scout Len Bannister, 79, guarding it this morning declaring: ‘If they want to knock this down – they’ll have to knock me down first’.
He told ITV News: ‘It’s absolutely crazy. Who’s it that actually wants to do it? I’ll fight them off. I’m actually very angry – and I’m not a protester. I’ve had a lot of enjoyment because of him in my life because of him’.
Local Tory MP Conor Burns tweeted earlier: ‘The removal of the statue of Lord Baden Powell from Poole is a huge error of judgement. Very concerned by the idea it is on advice from @dorsetpolice’. He added: ‘Are we going to follow the example of the Met and Bristol and let the mob rule the streets?’
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council leader Vikki Slade, a Liberal Democrat, says the statue on Poole Quay facing Brownsea Island where the first scout camp was held in 1907 will be taken down immediately and put in ‘safe storage’.
But there is fury over the statue’s planned removal today with local Tory MP Conor Burns tweeting: ‘The removal of the statue of Lord Baden Powell from Poole is a huge error of judgement. Very concerned by the idea it is on advice from @dorsetpolice’. He added: ‘Are we going to follow the example of the Met and Bristol and let the mob rule the streets?’
A ‘hit list’ of 78 statues and memorials to some of Britain’s most famous figures has been created by an anti-racism group urging local communities to remove them because they ‘celebrate racism and slavery’
The Scouts have released a statement this morning, and although they refused to condemn the decision they said they hoped it would be ‘temporary’.
BCP council, run by an alliance of Lib Dem, Labour, Green and Independent councillors, took the decision after Dorset Police advised them to remove it ‘to minimise the risk of any public disorder or anti-social behaviour’ after chaos in Bristol when a bronze of slave trader Edward Colston was torn down on Sunday.
Councillor Slade said: ‘Whilst famed for the creation of the Scouts, we also recognise that there are some aspects of Robert Baden-Powell’s life that are considered less worthy of commemoration. Therefore, we are removing the statue so that we can properly involve all relevant communities and groups in discussions about its future, including whether a more educational presentation of his life in a different setting might be more appropriate.’
The campaign for the statue’s removal has been led by Corrie Drew, who describes herself as a BLM supporter on Twitter but was also Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour general election campaign candidate for the area in 2019.
The next in line? BLM supporters have pinpointed a list of their next targets, but the most widely shared are (top left to bottom right) 1) Lord Nelson – tried to stop abolition (Nelson’s column) 2) Sir Thomas Picton 3) Thomas Guy – London, Guy’s Hospital 4) Sir Robert Peel 5) Sir Francis Drake 6) William Beckford 7) Henry Dundas 8) Clive of India 9) John Cass 10) General Sir Redvers Buller 11) Lord Kitchener 12) Ronald Fisher 13) Lord Grey – Grey’s Monument – Newcastle Upon Tyne, Grainger Street 14) Oliver Cromwell – Statue – London, Houses of Parliament 15) Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde – Statue – Glasgow, George Square 16) William Ewart Gladstone 17) William Leverhulme – Statue – Wirral, outside Lady Lever Art Gallery 18) William Armstrong – Memorial – Newcastle Upon Tyne, Eldon Place 19) King James II – Statue – London, Trafalgar Square 20) General James George Smith Neill, Wellington Square, Ayr
But Andrew Williams, the chairman of Poole Scout District Executive, has revealed that nobody had contacted him and told the Bournemouth Echo newspaper that initially he thought it ‘must have been a hoax’. And councillor Mark Howell, BCP cabinet member for regeneration and ward councillor for Poole Town, said he believed on ‘on balance’ that the scout founder’s contribution to society was ‘positive’.
Lord Baden-Powell was honoured with a statue in Poole 12 years ago because he founded the world Scout Movement that has helped tens of millions of children – and the bronze monument looks out to Brownsea Island where he held the first Scout camp in 1907.
Black Lives Matter supporters added the Poole statue to its ‘topple the racists’ list claiming was enthusiastic about Nazism and an admirer of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and his Hitler Youth movement – although his biographer Tim Jeal has said this support was more about his distrust of communism.
He became a British national hero during the Second Boer War in South Africa for defending a garrison town for 217 days from 5,000 Boer troops – but after his death in 1941 some modern historians branded him racist because he starved locals so he could feed his own soldiers. Baden-Powell also mounted an attack on masturbation and homosexuality, linking them to sexual and moral dissipation.
Lord Baden-Powell: How founder of cherished Scouts movement was invited to meet Hitler and dined with Nazis
The man who became known as B-P and is behind the Scout movement – which now has 54 million members around the world – was born Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell in London on February 22, 1857.
The son of an Oxford University professor, B-P got his early education from his mother, but he later won a scholarship to Charterhouse School.
At Charterhouse, he began to turn his attention to the great outdoors, hiding out in the woods around the school to track wildlife, and even catch and cook rabbits, being careful not to let the tell-tale smoke give his position away.
During the holidays, the young adventurer would head out with his brothers in search of adventure. On one occasion, they went sailing around the south coast of England. On another, they paddled up the River Thames by canoe to its source.
He joined the Army and in 1876, headed to India with his new regiment. As a young army officer, he specialised in scouting, map-making and reconnaissance, and soon began to train the other soldiers in what were essential skills for any soldier of the time.
Baden-Powell on Brownsea Island during his experimental camp in August 1907
He became a national hero after the Second Boer War in South Africa when he was a Lieutenant-General and he and a small garrison of British troops defended the town of Mafeking from 5,000 Boer soldiers for 217 days until reinforcements arrived.
But in the aftermath it was claimed he chose to deprive most Africans in the town of food to feed the soldiers defending Mafeking and forcibly requisitioned food from households. It is alleged he also forced Africans out on cattle drives by threatening them with floggings. Often they were murdered by the Boers. Critics say this is why he should be considered racist.
He arrived home in 1903 and began laying the ground work for the scouting movement, holding the first camp on Brownsea Island off Poole in 1907. Millions of children worldwide have benefitted from the scheme run mainly by volunteers.
But Baden-Powell is also known more controversially for his views on masturbation and homosexuality, after he linked them to sexual and moral dissipation.
The Scout movement used to refer to masturbation as ‘self abuse’ – and Baden‐Powell was keen to prevent boys doing it amid fears it led to insanity and moral ruin.
While his account sits perhaps uncomfortable in the modern day, it would have been a less controversial view at the time when it was an oft-held opinion by many leaders in education and the Church.
Baden-Powell was also said to have been enthusiastic about the fascism which was spreading through Europe after the First World War.
After visiting Italy in 1933, he wrote about Benito Mussolini and called him a ‘boy-man’ who had absorbed the Boy Scouts message and turned it into a nationalist youth movement.
And if were up to him, the Boy Scouts may have formed close ties with Hitler Youth. Baden-Powell also admired most of Hitler’s values and wrote in a 1939 diary entry that Mein Kampf was a ‘wonderful book with good ideas on education, health, propaganda, organisation etc’.
Intelligence chiefs feared the Nazis were plotting to destabilise Britain through infiltrating the Boy Scout and Girl Guide movement, previously secret documents revealed in 2010.
Hitler Youth leaders also had a warm meeting with the then-chief scout, Lord Baden-Powell, and invited him to meet the Fuhrer in Berlin.
Baden-Powell wrote to German Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop – later Hitler’s foreign minister – in in 1938. In letter that was later intercepted: ‘I want to offer my grateful thanks for your kindness in receiving me yesterday and giving me the opportunity of meeting Mr Beneman and Mr Hartmann Lautenbacher.
‘More especially, I am grateful for the kind conversation you accorded me which opened my eyes to the feeling of your country towards Britain, which I may say, reciprocates exactly the feeling which I have for Germany.
‘True peace between the two nations will depend on the youth being brought up on friendly terms together in forgetfulness of past differences.’
He said that the two Germans had suggested he go to see Hitler. However, no meeting took place because war broke out the following year.
It has also been claimed that Baden-Powell somewhat approved of Nazi attitudes towards homosexuality.
When a Scout colleague told him that a German scout leader had been sent to a concentration camp, Baden-Powell is said to have responded that he had been taken there for ‘homosexual tendencies’.
He died in January 1941.