Well that’s something the book burning, statue toppling masses don’t appreciate. We cannot (and should not in my opinion) be re writing history or just removing it.
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There are certain chapters of UK history which should not be celebrated - Slavery is one of them.
The statues are a difficult subject - they are traditionally erected to celebrate someone’s life and I don’t think that someone who’s fortune is built on slavery should be celebrated. I cannot see that a statue would be built to celebrate such a person now.
Now what you do with existing statues - who knows, perhaps an information plaque beside them, or perhaps replace them with someone more deserving. The local community should decide.
The defendants chose to go to the Crown Court. The fact that it was a unanimous verdict is very telling. I doubt the case will go to the Court of Appeal. Is there really any mechanism for challenging this result?
The problem is that when these statues were erected they were seen as someone deserving of the honour at that time in history. Replacing them today with someone who the current society might think is deserving may be thought of differently in the future.
History cannot be changed and should not be erased to suit the current thinking.
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If that were to happen they could again be replaced, or an information board beside them - the local population should decide.
Good repeat business for statue makers 
One of the Colston 4 has just been interviewed on Politics Live (BBC 2), apparently they were acquitted because they were able to demonstrate that there was a ‘lawful excuse’ for their behaviour.
The discussion points being raised in this thread have already been the subject of detailed discussion in the ‘George Floyd’ thread - including much detail on the ‘lawful excuse’ finding.
Discussion of the actual toppling is earlier in the thread, but that on the court verdict starts here:
I thought my comment was directly related to the Colston statue toppling Geof. Watching the interview ‘live’ gave me more of an insight into why the four did what they did and why they were acquitted than reading media reports. One of the points the person made was that anyone considering do a similar thing in the future could not expect to be automatically ‘let off’ as there were a unique set of circumstances surrounding the Colston statue incident.
Absolutely Tim. On this - preferring video presentation to written - it’s you that’s in the mainstream now and me that’s out of the loop (it’s a discussion I have with a very old friend of mine, who loves ‘Youtube’ - which I just find frustrating; mind you she is a professional musician so obviously lives in a very audio-visual world).
My post wasn’t critical - just a (hopefully) useful pointer for those interested in the legal detail.
The other problem with all this is that if we wanted to truly cleanse ourselves of our disgraceful slave driving past we’d have to give away about 80% of the nation’s entire wealth…why not to African countries? Britain (along with many other developed countries today) owes its good fortune to its shady past.
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Because a substantial amount of British wealth (it would be interesting to know how much, if there were a breakdown) would have come from India and other Asian nations too.
And since we’re asking hypothetical questions, would it also be expected that the descendants of black Africans that sold their fellows into slavery to Europeans would also be expected to make reparations? My perception of slavery is that there’s quite a tangled web of guilt, and restitution if it were possible and beneficial, would involve a lot of nations.
It seems to me that slavery is almost as old as humanity, and deeply embedded. It would be interesting to know if it is now possible to really stop it, and what changes could be made (enforced into cultures?) that would make slavery an unacceptable practice across the planet. Is there something the west - as the wealthiest nations - could do that would change parts of the world in a positive way where selling people into slavery is not unusual? Is there a means other than legislation that could change the practice of millennia?
We need to find a way to not only talk about this, but also for everyone to culturally move on. Not so that we can pretend it didn’t happen, but so that everyone is free. Slavery traps both the slave and master.
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The historical complicity of West African tribes in the Transatlantic slavery trade is problematic, not least because today very few in either sub-Saharan Africa or elsewhere feel able to discuss it. If you raise the issue, you’re usually shouted down, but the fact remains that the tribes of West Africa sold captured members of other tribes to the Portuguese, then the French and finally the British.
This historical fact is problematic in two respects, firstly present day West Africans will obviously deny any involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade and secondly present day Afro-Americans focus on examples like Liberia and cannot face the fact that other African people captured their ancestors and sold them to European slavers.
There’s been a lot of press in recent times about the return of the Benin ‘bronzes’ and while that’s a great subject for debate on another thread, the fact remains that from about 1600 onwards the metal (brass actually) from which they were made came from manilas, wrist bracelets made in places like Birmingham and Bristol and used as slave trading currency with Benin (which had always lacked any local sources of non-ferrous ore). I collect traditional African currencies and have several of these creepy French and British slave trading bracelets
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That’s a false ‘either or comparison’ whereas one doesn’t preclude the other
The insight in @Marty2 's post missing in the subsequent posts is that the transatlantic slave trade and plantation system in the Americas had a specific character as racialised slavery - it was in fact the specifically capitalist form of slavery. Previous - and indeed subsequent forms of slavery had more the character of indentured labour - indeed the very early - 17th century - indentured labour in America exploited both black and white people, but, as generally in the ancient world, with the hope of release - it was only as capitalism developed that it took the extreme racist form we all know and regret.
The requirement to define slaves as subhuman was the - literally - black underside of the idea that ‘all men are created equal’ - in Jefferson’s 1776 formulation, aimed at destroying the old ‘natural order’ of monarchy and aristocracy - but if you believe this, and at the same time want to own/trade slaves, you can’t admit they are human too. But moreover, the slave plantation system was producing immense wealth (as indeed were other forms of extreme exploitation in India and other colonies): just as the Europeans couldn’t ideologically ‘afford’ to see Africans as human beings, they couldn’t financially afford to give up the wealth they were creating (ideology always being the rationalisation and internalisation of social relations of power, wealth and privilege).
Marty is right - present inequalities are absolutely dependent on past exploitations - without the wealth being generated by racial slavery, the industrial revolution would not have taken place in Britain - current inequalities between races and nations very largely come from slavery and colonialism - if you took away everything in the UK built with dirty money there would be little left.
What we do about this now I don’t know - but for goodness sake lets approach it with some dignity - look history square in the face and own up, not cast around like some snotty schoolboy for an ‘I’m not the only one’ kind of excuse.
Well that would be for them to decide, since it seems to be in the UK that there’s suddenly this upswell of rage caused by the veneration of historical figures like Colston.
How deep do these feelings really run? If the arsonists had to give up any of the privileges of living in 21st century UK in order to redress the sins of past generations, they might find that their militantism would run out of steam pretty rapidly.
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Though he is in a better position to judge his priorities than either of us is!
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I’m guessing that it’s only a matter of time before anyone who can trace their heritage back to the ancient Britons gets to burn down anything newer than Stonehenge and walk away scot free.
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Sounds good to me. 
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Anyone interested in this debate should probably take a look at this:
There was an interesting debate on the subject right at the end of the BBC R4 Today programme this morning - well worth a listen.