Black Lives Matter UK Raises $1 Million in Days, Vows to Spend Cash on Abolition of Police

BARKING, ENGLAND - JUNE 09: A Black Lives Matter protest takes place in Barking town centr
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Black Lives Matter UK (BLMUK) — the British arm of the radical leftist movement that originated in the United States — has raised over $1 million in the past week in a crowdfunding campaign, vowing to spend the cash on the “abolition of police”.

The GoFundMe campaign, that was launched one week ago following the death of U.S. citizen George Floyd, had raised £800,000 ($1,022,000), with over 29,000 donations.

In the crowdfunding pitch, BLMUK said that they are “guided by a commitment to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white-supremacy, patriarchy, and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain and around the world”.

The black radical group said that they intend to use the donations to put in place “police monitoring” as well as developing “strategies for the abolition of police”.

The call to abolish the police mirrors a similar movement in the United States, where leftist politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar have joined the campaign to ‘#DefundThePolice’.

Founded in 2016, BLMUK describes themselves as a “coalition of black activists and organisers across the UK”. The leftist group said their main purpose is to “challenge the rise of the authoritarian right-wing across the world, from Brazil to Britain”.

“Our commitment to all black lives means that we lift up the experiences of the most marginalised in our communities, including but not limited to working class queer, trans, undocumented, disabled, Muslim, sex workers, women/non-binary, HIV+ people,” they said.

In its funding plea, Black Lives Matter UK also called for “reparations” to be paid out to “black people dealing with generational trauma and institutional racism”, adding that: “The redistribution of wealth is a key factor of allyship in 2020.”

BLMUK has organised large scale protests since the start of the month, with thousands of people flooding onto the streets of London and other cities across the country, despite government regulations banning mass gatherings during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the marches organised by the group exposing its supporters to a greater level of coronavirus risk, the group remarked that “black communities are hardest hit by the Coronavirus pandemic. Black people are dying at up to four times the rate of their white counterparts. This is racism.”

The London Black Lives Matter protests have been marked by acts of vandalism and violent attacks against police. In one instance, police were chased through the streets by the leftist activists who shouted “run, piggy” as they pelted the officers with projectiles.

The movement has also spurred a campaign to destroy or remove historical monuments in the UK for their perceived racism. Over the weekend, activists defaced the statues of Abraham Lincoln and Sir Winston Churchill in London.

On Tuesday, at the behest of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a statue of Robert Milligan, the Scottish merchant who founded West India Docks in London, was removed by authorities over his ties to slavery, before vandals had a chance to destroy it.

A memorial to the former British Monarch, Queen Victoria, was also targeted in the ongoing assault on British history, with vandals scrawling the words “whore” and “racist” on the memorial.

Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka

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