The British street artist Banksy has hit back at the UK’s home secretary James Cleverly and other right-wing politicians in Europe after Cleverly branded his latest artwork, which tackles the migrant crisis, “vile” and “unacceptable”. The inflatable boat full of dummies of migrants was unveiled at the Glastonbury music festival over the weekend.
Posting on Instagram on the eve of the UK general election, Banksy shared an image of the Louise Michel, a search and rescue boat he has funded that has saved scores of people tying to make the perilous crossing to Europe from North Africa.
“The home secretary called my Glastonbury boat ‘vile and unacceptable’, which seemed a bit over the top,” Banksy says. “The real boat I fund, the MV Louise Michel rescued 17 unaccompanied children from the central Med last night. As punishment the Italian authorities have detained it—which seems vile and unacceptable to me.”
Seemingly missing the point of Banksy’s work, Cleverly told Sky News in an interview on Monday: “There are a bunch of people there joking and celebrating about criminal actions which costs lives. People die. People die in the Mediterranean, they die in the Channel. This is not funny. It is vile.”
Asked if Banksy’s boat could have been a commentary on the right-wing Conservative party’s failure to address the issue of migrant crossings, he said: “Our ability to sort that problem out has been hampered at every stage by the Labour party, who aspire to border control.”
According to an Instagram post by the Louise Michel crew, the boat has been impounded for 20 days in the port of Lampedusa after bad weather prevented it from docking in Pozzallo in Sicily, as ordered by the Italian authorities. Seeking safety nearer Lampedusa, the crew received permission to disembark 37 survivors there, but were later informed the boat was being detained for not following orders.
“This political game played with people seeking safety needs to end immediately,” says the post. “No one should be left at sea. Everyone has the right to a safe place. And nobody’s safety should be compromised for political games or strategies! The EU is deliberately restricting civil sea rescue while people are drowning in the Mediterranean in search of safety.”
This is not the first time the Louise Michel has been detained in Italy. It was impounded—and later released—by the Italian authorities in March 2023 as Giorgia Meloni’s far right-wing government clamped down on humanitarian operations in an attempt to halt a surge in Mediterranean crossings.
Cleverly has led on immigration in the run up to the UK election, which is expected to give Labour a landslide victory over the Tories. The right-wing politician recently visited Lampedusa where he praised the work of his Italian counterpart, Matteo Piantedosi who is the interior minister in Meloni’s government.