'Picton monument must stand' - Neil Hamilton backs Carmarthen obelisk preservation
The leader of UKIP in Wales has called for a monument of slave-trader Thomas Picton to be preserved.
MS Neil Hamilton has requested that Carmarthenshire County Council take the decision to preserve the Picton monument in Carmarthen to avoid "censoring Wales' proud history."
It comes just days after a statue of Picton in Cardiff City Hall was boarded up, with Cardiff Council agreeing to remove it following Black Lives Matter protests around the world.
The obelisk has stood in the town for over 130 years.
Sir Thomas Picton is remembered for his role in the Peninsular War and for being the highest ranking officer killed at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
However, he is also known for his brutal regime in Trinidad, a nation which he served as a governor. It is also believed that he amassed a substantial fortune after profiting from the then legal slave trade.
A petition was launched to rename the monument and it gathered around 20,000 signatures.
Speaking of its future, Mr Hamilton said that it needs to be "preserved" whilst stating that "Without Picton, Britain might have lost at Waterloo".
"It is totally unfair to apply the moral standards of today to historical figures. This precedent is dangerous," he continued.
"No historical individual, culture, or civilisation is innocent of practices that we in the 21stcentury now deem evil and despicable.
"Should Washington DC and Washington State be re-named in favour of some ‘woke’ hero of today? Merely posing the question exposes its absurdity."
Mr Hamilton went on to state that the monument is not a celebration of Picton the slave trader.
"It commemorates his patriotism, military successes, courage and death in battle which deserve to be perpetuated in public monuments.
“Local councils which seek to censor Wales’s proud history must be confronted. These leftist councillors are non-entities who will be remembered for nothing. Picton’s military achievements will live forever."