Banksy is an establishment stooge whose ugly art hastens the West's collapse

In April 2026, a statue appeared overnight in Waterloo Place, central London, an area already home to several monuments connected to the British Empire, including an equestrian statue of Edward VII and John Bell's Crimean War memorial. The new addition depicted a politician holding a flag on a pole and marching forward, but the wind has blown the flag into his face, and he is about to stride off the plinth. The piece is the work of Robin Gunningham, the artist known as Banksy, whose identity was revealed by The Mail on Sunday in 2008. Gunningham is a former public schoolboy, and his work is characterized as a tiresome and obvious commentary suggesting that only fools are patriots.

Gunningham's supporters likely view the statue as a daring act, but the reality is that an ordinary person committing a similar act of vandalism would face arrest for criminal damage or even terrorism offenses. A truly brave work of art would be dissident and counter-cultural, possessing real courage, and its creator would be castigated by the political and social establishment as a dangerous subversive. The statue is not an isolated incident; it follows a pattern of establishment-protected stunts. For example, at the Glastonbury Festival in 2025, Gunningham orchestrated a stunt involving an inflatable dinghy containing figures meant to represent illegal migrants, which was passed over the heads of the audience, many of whom were likely under the influence of drugs.

Another example of Gunningham's work is a piece depicting a judge in wig and robes lifting a gavel—an item not actually used in English courts—and using it to batter a protester clutching a bloodstained placard and lying defenselessly on the ground. This was an obvious, rather adolescent allusion to the conviction of protesters for Palestine Action, a proscribed terrorist organization. The work is considered bad, ugly, and artistically worthless, but Gunningham is a talented self-promoter. Unlike real rebels and other vandals, Gunningham is protected by the establishment because he is an establishment stooge. His art is not only aesthetically bankrupt but also contributes to a broader cultural decline, hastening the collapse of the West by promoting a simplistic and cynical worldview that is shielded from the consequences that would befall any other person engaging in similar acts.