Mysterious muralist Banksy on Wednesday took aim at British Home Secretary James Cleverley, who had previously criticised an inflatable raft artwork that appeared at the Glastonbury festival last week.
In the recent Sky News The politician outwardly called Banksy’s work “vile and unacceptable”. Banksy hit back on Instagram today, saying the response seemed “a bit much”.
“The real ship I funded, the MV Louise Michel, rescued 17 unaccompanied children from the central Mediterranean on Monday evening,” Banks wrote. “Italian authorities are holding it as punishment — vile and unacceptable in my opinion.”
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Cleverly claimed Sky News In the interview, Banksy’s work was a “celebration of the loss of life in the Channel”. When the Secretary of State was asked whether Banksy would criticise the Conservative Government’s inability to crack down on the migrant smuggling industry, he cleverly dodged the question.
Instead, Cleverley slammed the UK Labour Party for its “desire to control the border” and for hindering the Conservatives’ efforts to control the influx of immigrants into the UK.
According to the Oxford University Migration Observatory, the number of migrants arriving in the UK by small boats across the English Channel has risen sharply since 2018, with 12,646 small boat arrivals recorded in the first half of 2024, an increase of 16% over the same period last year.
In May, three men were arrested and charged with the deaths of five migrants, including a 7-year-old girl, who were crushed to death while trying to enter the UK illegally in a small boat. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters That The cross-Channel voyages are “the result of criminal gangs taking advantage of vulnerable people; they are cramming more and more people onto these small, unseaworthy boats.”
Immigration was a major theme at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, with a section of the festival called “Terminal 1” dedicated to the subject.
The Louise Michel is a 98-foot former French navy ship funded by Banksy with funds from the sale of his works; it performs search and rescue missions off the coast of Europe. The ship was launched in August 2019 and rescued 350 people in its first week. Italian authorities seized the ship after it attempted to rescue 37 migrants from the central Mediterranean.
