Diane Abbott has labelled the decision by Hoxton’s Museum of the Home to keep slave trader Robert Geffrye’s statue up “completely inappropriate”.
In a consultation, most respondents said they would prefer the statue be taken down, but the museum’s trustees said they will keep it to “create a powerful platform for debate about the connection between the buildings and transatlantic slavery”.
The decision has provoked a backlash from Hackney residents.
Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, told the Londoner: “I think it’s important not to get bogged down in debates about statues rather than the very real issues of racial injustice that the Black Lives Matter movement is trying to raise.
"But I am surprised that the museum has chosen to ignore local people and keep the statute of the slave trader in pride of place.
"Glorifying a man who made his money out of slavery is completely inappropriate in a diverse area like Hackney.”
Singer Jermain Jackman, who is co-chair of the Hackney Young Futuresboard, said the refusal to remove the statue was “disgusting and unacceptable”.
“For a museum in this borough to refuse to remove a slave trader statue despite the majority of response saying otherwise is disgusting and unacceptable,” he added.
