Jury power? In the UK? England?

As reported by ZeroHedge (the infamous nom de plume, Tyler Durden, fronting for real author Steve Watson), the Dutch activist which tagged the well-known statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square in London, has been found “not guilty” by an English jury.

Although the argument made in the activist’s defense was that the spray paint used to vandalize the statue with pro-Palestinian slogans could be removed with water and therefore was not really vandalism, the Crown still reported the cleaning cost more than seven thousand pounds.

Clearly, your average British perpetrator of vandalism – even “short-term” and “easily cleaned” graffiti, could expect to be found guilty and required to pay the costs plus some sort of penalty for defacing a public monument. As some pointed out, they suspect a different verdict may have been made if it had been a statue of Gandhi or Mandela that had been so treated. And as several of us pointed out, the government agency probably was incredibly inefficient and wasteful of its money.

Here at TPOL, we find ourselves with mixed emotions and ideas. We certainly do not disagree with the Dutchman regarding Sir Winston’s status as a war criminal. The actions of this imperialist, not just in World War Two, but in many other cases, clearly support that charge. Although we would be surprised if his motive was to support Zionism: we have always assumed that Churchill would have cheerfully strangled every Israeli and Zionist with his own hands if it would have preserved the British Empire and the United Kingdom itself. To him, they were just another set of pawns.

But at the same time, this guy is doing this in support of another set of war criminals: the Islamists of Hamas and the rest of the so-called Palestinian resistance. Who certainly are no less responsible for war crimes over decades than their Israeli foes, Sir Winston, his co-conspirators FDR and Joe Stalin, and a lot of others.

However, to us, it is key that (for whatever reason), a jury of Englishmen and women found him not guilty. It appears, from what we know, that this panel judged both the law and the facts, and decided that the law was wrong. Whether this was done at the prompting of the Crown’s prosecutor and the be-wigged and black-robed judge presiding, we don’t know. But the fact is, they nullified the law!

Unlike similar situations in the States, this was not a failure by the authorities – the government – to prosecute. (Although it is noted that many people believe their hearts were not in it.) The vandals of numerous statues and memorials in the States (mostly of Confederate heroes and war dead) have often not been prosecuted at all. Even when that included the outright destruction of the public property. And have in fact, been praised by actual government officials as well as the Woke crowd.

We see more than just an act of vandalizing the statue of a man many libertarians consider an evil man, somewhat agreeing with many commenters that this action is part of a general assault on British (and English, Welsh, Scots, and Orange Irish) culture and society. It is a form of cancel culture, to attack those elements of English and British history. Yes, Churchill was no less a threat to liberty than Americans (Abe Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, among others); but like those people, he holds mythic status for the popular mind.

Whatever the claimed motives of the Dutch tagger, it is not impossible to see his actions as more than an attack on Churchill: but rather, as an attack on British pride and identity.

Of course, there are many unanswered questions. And we doubt if we will ever know the answers, as Mama Liberty often pointed out.

Is this vandal’s motivation and actions typical of a majority (or dominant minority) of subjects of the Kingdom of the Netherlands? Of citizens of the European Union in general? Is this tied to the UK’s secession from the EU? Is it strictly an Islamist issue? Or does this have to do with the various ways British values (good and bad) are being attacked? (The UK supposedly has been told by the UN that it must have more statues of “black people” as restitution for slavery; and a truly hideous statue of an obese black woman has been placed in a prominent place in London specifically to twit people and promote DIE (as we at TPOL call DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).

What was the jury’s motivation in apparently unanimously nullifying the law? Did they really believe the defense counsel about the “no big deal” (the gist of his argument)? Or did they believe that (like so many people today in Virginia, Georgia, and elsewhere) Churchill was beyond the pale and his memory deserved what the Dutchman did?

From a point of view of lovers of liberty, any time a jury actually exercises its power and effectively nullifies a law is a good incident. Even if someone obviously was (and even admitted to being) guilty of a crime. (It is important to remind ourselves that a fundamental part of English and American law is: ““Better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer” (Blackstone’s Principle).

What are your thoughts, dear reader?

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Source: https://freedombunker.com/2026/09/23/jury-power-in-the-uk-england/