Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has lashed out at BLM protesters after a statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill opposite the British parliament was boarded up for protection before three days of planned demonstrations.
The World War II leader's statue on Parliament Square was sprayed with graffiti declaring Churchill a racist during a fractious end to a mostly peaceful demonstration on Sunday over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Churchill served as Britain's Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945, when he led the country to victory in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955.
Mr Frydenberg spoke out against those turning against historical figures, suggesting they were no longer seeing the bigger picture.
"This is nuts - Churchill statue in London boarded up to protect against demonstrators. Don’t people get it? He saved their families and the world from Nazi tyranny!" Mr Frydenberg said in a tweet.
"As Churchill once said ‘the farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see'."
Boarding has also been placed around the foot of the Cenotaph war memorial on Whitehall, where the government and royal family attend Remembrance Sunday events each year commemorating those killed in World War I and conflicts since then.
The death of Mr Floyd, an African American, after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while detaining him on 25 May, has sparked protests across the United States and Europe and reignited a debate in Britain about monuments to those involved in the country's imperialist past.
Sculptures of slave traders have been taken down and local authorities have said they may remove a statue of the founder of the worldwide scouting movement, Robert Baden-Powell, to protect it.
Black Lives Matter protesters are due to gather again on Friday in central London.
A loose grouping of football fans who describe themselves as patriots but are criticised by opponents as hooligans, and supporters of a right-wing leader, Tommy Robinson, have said they will gather in London on Saturday to protect statues.
