BLM UK working to spend £1million donations, meanwhile Met Police spent £1.5million policing BLM
Black Lives Matter (BLM) UK announced on Tuesday how the movement will spend the £1 million it has received in donations through the ‘GoFundMe’ crowdfunding campaign which started by the activist group on June 2nd and that has attracted more than 35,000 donations totalling £1.17 million.
Yet, the BLM UK has revealed that the group GoFund-Me is holding on to the money until it explains how it will be distributed, waiting for a concrete plan to be drafted.
The group declared it planned to have its website up and running by Tuesday, August 4th to mark the fourth anniversary of its founding. It is also the anniversary of Mark Duggan’s murder, a 29-year-old British man who was shot and killed by police in Tottenham, North London on 4 August 2011. Even if the Metropolitan Police stated that officers were attempting to arrest Duggan on suspicion of planning an attack and that he had a handgun, the guy died from a gunshot wound to the chest, and the brutal act sparked the London riots.
Meanwhile, the BLM movement has been highly criticised for a far-Left policy agenda, which includes tearing down capitalism and abolishing the police, and its lack of transparency.
Beyond founding member Joshua Virasami, 30, an artist, writer and political organiser whose work intersects across political struggles and whose campaigning sits in a variety of organisations including Occupy and Black Lives Matter, not much has been revealed of the BLM ‘core’ leadership identities.
Later, in a statement posted on its fundraising page on July 10th, BLM UK announced it was “working with organisational and legal experts to create the most appropriate and ethical structure for holding and distributing much of these generous funds’, adding it hoped to ‘get the money out sooner rather than later”.
Meanwhile, The Mail on Sunday revealed that the Metropolitan Police spent £1.5 million policing the Black Lives Matter and counter-protests on the weekend of June 13 and 14.
The largely peaceful BLM demonstration was met by a mob of far-Right extremists who pelted police with bottles, barriers and fireworks.
The rally was portrayed as an effort to protect historical monuments after the defacing of Winston Churchill’s statue the weekend before. However, it was hijacked by far-Right thugs and Home Secretary Priti Patel who judged the scenes as “unacceptable thuggery”.
Boris Johnson joined the debate too, saying: “Racist thuggery has no place on our streets. Anyone attacking the police will be met with the full force of the law.”
One of the counter-protesters was photographed urinating on the memorial to PC Keith Palmer, who was killed in the Westminster terror attack in 2017. Andrew Banks, 28, was jailed for 14 days after pleading guilty to outraging public decency at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
At the time of the protests, Met Commander Bas Javid said police had made the right decision to allow demonstrators to gather in Central London despite the lockdown and fears of violent incidents.
He stated: “The assessment made was that the best tactic was to cater for an assembly and the best way to do that is to put conditions in place.
“Having an element of control is the best and safest way to manage that, not just for the public but for the people who are demonstrating and police officers.”