Keir Starmer claimed protesters were “completely wrong” to topple the statue of a 17th century Bristol slave trader on the weekend.
The Labour leader said the statue of Edward Colston should have been taken down “a long, long time ago” but should have been done democratically.
Police are investigating the toppling of bronze statue during Sunday’s Black Lives Matter protests in Bristol.
Tory ministers have demanded prosecutions of those who pulled down the statue and threw it in the harbour.
Boris Johnson said the weekend of Black Lives Matter protests had been “subverted by thuggery”.
The marches, including demonstrations in Glasgow and Edinburgh, were mostly peaceful but saw some clash with police in London, with 22 officers injured.
Starmer said the Bristol protesters should not have toppled the statue of the slave trader whose Royal African Company trafficked and killed tens of thousands.
Starmer, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, told an LBC radio phone-in: “It shouldn’t have been done in that way - completely wrong to pull a statue down like that.
"The statue should have been brought down properly with consent and put in a museum.”
The controversial bronze memorial to Colston has been in Bristol since 1895.
After being pulled down, the statue was dragged through the city before being dumped in the harbour by Pero’s Bridge, named after enslaved man Pero Jones who lived and died in Bristol.
Around 10,000 people took part in the protest on Sunday, which was praised by Avon and Somerset Police for being “peaceful and respectful”.
No arrests were made but officers are now collating footage of a “small group of people” filmed pulling down the statue with ropes, amounting to criminal damage, the force said.
Home Secretary Priti Patel described the incident as “utterly disgraceful”, while crime, policing and justice minister Kit Malthouse called for those responsible to be prosecuted.
Marvin Rees, mayor of Bristol, said he felt no “sense of loss” for the statue.
He told BBC Radio 4: “As an elected politician, obviously I cannot condone the damage and I am very concerned about the implications of a mass gathering on the possibility of a second Covid wave.
“But I am of Jamaican heritage and I cannot pretend that I have any real sense of loss for the statue and I cannot pretend it was anything other than a personal affront to me to have it in the middle of Bristol, the city in which I grew up.”
