Mysterious muralist Banksy took aim on Wednesday at British Home Secretary James Cleverly, who had previously criticized an artwork featuring an inflatable raft that appeared at the Glastonbury music festival last week.
In a recent Sky News appearance, the politician called the Banksy work “vile and unacceptable.” On Instagram today, Banksy fired back, saying that that response seemed “a bit over the top.”
“The real boat I fund, the MV Louise Michel, rescued 17 unaccompanied children from the central Med on Monday night,” Banksy wrote. “As punishment the Italian authorities have detained it – which seems vile and unacceptable to me.”
Cleverly claimed in the Sky News interview that the Banksy piece was “a celebration of loss of life in the Channel.” When the secretary was asked whether it was possible that Banksy, “who makes political commentary on all sorts of things,” could have been criticizing the conservative government’s inability to confront the migrant smuggling industry, Cleverly dodged the question.
Instead, Cleverly railed against the UKs Labour party, which he said “aspires to run border control” and has hindered Conservative efforts to tighten the influx of migrants into Great Britain.
