‘Has there ever been a more tone-deaf home secretary?’: Piers Morgan attacks Priti Patel for calling removal of Colston statue ‘unacceptable’

Monument of 17th-century slave trader thrown into harbour during anti-racism protests

Piers Morgan has branded Priti Patel “tone deaf” after the home secretary said the tearing down of Bristol’s Edward Colston statue was “unacceptable”.

The figure of the 17th-century slave trader was pulled down and thrown into the city’s harbour by protesters during Black Lives Matter demonstrations on Sunday.

Mr Morgan was left enraged by Ms Patel’s comments, after she described the incident as “utterly disgraceful” and claimed it “undermines” the anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in the US.

The Good Morning Britain (GMB) host tweeted on Sunday evening: “Priti Patel thinks pulling down a slave trader’s statue ‘undermines’ racism protests.

“Have we ever had a more tone-deaf home secretary?”

In another post, he claimed some Twitter users were more concerned about the statue being toppled than Mr Floyd’s death.

He wrote: “Some people on here seem more enraged that a slave-trader’s statue was pulled down (why was it still up?) than they were by George Floyd being slowly murdered on camera by a racist cop. This strikes me as a ‘problematic’ mindset...”

The presenter’s rant continued on Monday morning, when he told GMB viewers: “For Priti Patel, the home secretary, to be outraged, outraged, this week of all weeks, she’s outraged, the most I’ve heard her outraged, about that statue being put into the water in a week when there have been global protests about the death of a black man at the hands of a racist policeman.

“That’s what outrages you? Priti Patel? Really?”

Sunday’s Black Lives Matter rallies attracted thousands of people across the UK, including in London, where graffiti was scrawled on the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square.

They come following the death of African-American George Floyd, who died after a white police officer held him down by pressing a knee on his neck for over eight minutes.