The point is that Oriel college is not a government owned building and the grounds of Oxford are not public government owned space. Theres a lot of difference between a Rhodes statue on Oriel college and one in Hyde park. One is public space, the other isn’t.
Agreed on all of that.
Ok, then neither should liberals give an inch. Down with all Confederate statues, erase them from history, and institution reparations! Because if its good for you guys, it must be a good strategy for us too right? 
What if the university’s management want it removed to placate the protesters? Should the decision be removed from their hands because you feel its a wrong one?
Depends if the goals of liberal politicians match their stated goals.
I’d be for reparations if for former slaves.
It is not the University’s decision, it does not matter who owns the building or the land. The university has to go to the local authority for permission to remove the statue even if permission is granted which is unlikely they will the have to apply to English Heritage, after being refused by them they will have to appeal to the government only to be refused
God help anyone who gets a preservation order slapped on their house every time you want to redecorate you will have to run it by the council for their permission, your windows are drafty no you cannot replace them only have them repaired in consultation with the local authority who’s recommendations are very costly at your expense. If you want to dig footings for an extension and get planning permission you then have to apply to English Heritage for permission to dig, before giving permission they will ask for a archeological report (at your expense aprox £10,000) and pray they do not find some thing because if they do it starts to get very expensive.
Preservation orders are not easy to get around that is why we have so many historic buildings in England (Scotland has its own property laws)
As I’ve already pointed out, the local authority has never refused an Oxford college’s listed building consent request. Your response was “You would have to apply to get the statue unlisted.” Well, no shit. You then posted, “And your understanding of preservation laws in England are”. You are now back to making silly claims about how the university is bound to be refused permission, again without any evidence.
Oriel College is not your cousin Steve trying to put double glazing in a half-timbered cottage. The county council will let it take down the statue if it asks.
Yes but they don’t want to and they don’t have to. Rhodes gave oxford millions of pounds in endowment and funded a perpetual scholarship. They are in their rights to refuse to take him down.
I agree with re-contextualising the statue or having a sign or a counter protest statue underneath it. All valid and good points, but they should not take him down.
See post 123.
From the Local Oxford paper
TEARING down the statue of a 19th Century politician could be trickier than some might hope as it is** part of a Grade II* listed building.
**Oriel College sparked a national debate last week after it announced it would remove a plaque on King Edward Street dedicated to Cecil Rhodes, in response to a student anti-racism campaign.
The college also promised to embark on a six-month consultation about removing a statue of the imperialist, which faces on to High Street.
Removing the statue, part of a Grade-II* listed building, would require planning consent.
Chris Smith, director of planning at Historic England, said: “The stories of human suffering and triumph that are embodied in historic places should be spoken about, understood and debated as an essential aspect of our national culture.
“The building is among the top seven per cent of buildings which are afforded special protection.”
A spokesman for the campaign group Rhodes Must Fall Oxford said: “We will continue to demonstrate that a six-month delay is not only unacceptable, but also in contradiction with Oriel’s own stated aim to foster an “inclusive” environment for its ethnic minority students.”
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All I am trying to do is underline the difficulties with listed buildings it is not plain sailing as you seem to think
Then try providing some evidence to that effect.
“It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of 'em was one kinda sombitch or another.”-Malcolm Reynolds.
An update - in the teeth of Discourse warnings - for anyone who’s interested:
In June 2020 Oriel College’s governing body voted in favour of removign the statue and set up an independent inquiry to advise on the issues around it.
A couple of days ago, the inquiry published its report. A majority of members supported the decision to remove the statue. The report includes detailed recommendations for the best way to achieve this.
Naturally, therefore, Oriel’s response to the report was to announce that it won’t be removing the statue.
It is, apparently, too difficult and time consuming to pursue the necessary permissions. This isn’t absolute hogwash - the committee sets out the process here:
C.14 An application would need to be made to the City Council to remove the statue. As the
High Street Building is Grade II* listed, the College’s application would need to address the issues raised in Historic England’s checklist for local authorities concerning applications with contested heritage. It would need, in particular, to articulate the public benefits and reduction in social harms to be achieved by moving the statue. These would need to include reference to the College’s educational responsibilities (including its responsibilities to equality, diversity and inclusion under the 2010 Equality Act) and the impact of the statue and its associations on College members (students, fellows and staff), other students of the city’s universities, residents of the city, visitors and tourists.
C.15 The case presented would need to be detailed and comprehensive in view of the
preference to ‘retain and explain’ articulated by both Historic England and the Secretary of State, including ‘information which is proportionate to the asset’s importance and sufficient to understand the potential impact of the proposal on its significance.’ A substantial plan of action for contextualising the removed memorials would be essential in addressing the issues to be considered by the Council, Historic England and the Secretary of State. It would be appropriate for there to be consultation with the Council before an application was submitted.
C.16 If an application to move or remove the statue were approved by the City Council, it would be further considered by Historic England and, in light of recent statements, would be likely to be called in for decision by the Secretary of State. These processes would take significant time, increasing the importance of substantive temporary contextualisation and early steps towards permanent contextualisation (see above).
C.16 is the real sticking point here. The current Tory government has shown itself all too happy to engage in a culture war over statues, history, and “revisionism” by which they seem to mean any acknowledgement that the whole slavery/colonialism/Empire episodes might have been less than morally pristine*. If Oriel did pursue permission to remove the statue to a museum, the whole issue would be blown up into an unedifying cause celebre which it would take a commitment of resource and energy to deal with and which would likely imperil donations. Which is not to say removing the statue isn’t the right thing to do, just that it’s a hard thing to do. So the outcome is kind of obvious.
*This editorial gives a good flavour:
I don’t know. The usual obvious outcome is that, if the people don’t support the statue but someone in charge tried to force them not to take it down, then the statue gets destroyed extralegally instead. And then it would be really difficult to get it repaired or replaced.
But it’s been four years, and there is that weird idea that somehow preserving property is preserving history that seems to be much stronger over there—hence the reason for all the legal tape to deal with it even when the majority in the local area don’t approve.
So is there any reason to believe that the usually expected extralegal action will occur any time soon?
I was referring to the outcome in terms of “Will Oriel College do the right thing or the easy thing?”
In terms of “extra-legal” action if you do an image search for the statue you’ll see that it’s two stories up in a niche on the college building. Not impossible for a crowd to remove, but far harder and riskier than a statue on an isolated ground-level plinth.
It seems to me that they could easily cover it up with a tarpaulin or something, with little difficulty or expense. They wouldn’t need to get permission to do that.
Probably?
I think if it were a permanent alteration to the look of building someone could bring some sort of action to challenge it. And someone would.
That gets you into the jiggery-pokery of working out what the maximum amount of time is that you can keep it covered for “cleaning” or whatever excuse your using, and then taking the cover off for between 8pm and 8 am on the appropriate day before recovering. Which, given this is Oxford, is the sort of thing that could devolve into a quaint tradition in 100 years time or so, but again, I doubt Oriel want to bother.