Man scales crane to hang Black Lives Matter flag in east London

Area cordoned off by police after man scales crane in Canning Town

(Jem Collins)

A man has climbed a crane in East London to unfurl a Black Lives Matter flag.

The surrounding area of Canning Town has been cordoned off by police, with emergency services at the scene.

The flag reads “Black lives matter just as much as whites, dads lives matter just as much as mums, enough is enough”.

The flag has been attached to the crane, which is situated on Halsville Quarter, close to Canning Town station.

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(Jem Collins)

Jem Collins, who was present at the scene, told The Independent:

“It’s really quite a big area they’ve got cordoned off, and there are a lot of police about.

“The cranes are really high – I’m not sure how well the photos do it justice. It took me a while to work out what people were even looking at and what the banner even said.”

A video on YouTube - spanning more than six and a half hours - shows a man scale the crane and then unfurling a large flag.

The one-man-protest is being staged as an Independent report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities - which was launched in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 - ruled that “institutional racism doesn’t exist” within the UK.

The report - by which race equality campaigners say they are “deeply, massively let down” - has received a significant level of backlash.

Labour MP David Lammy, who led a review into racial disparities in the criminal justice system in 2017, said the report was an “insult to anybody and everybody across this country who experiences institutional racism”.