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UK Will Remove Historical Figures From Currency in Latest Move to Erase National Heritage

(Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Jarrett Stepman / @JarrettStepman

Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal. He is also the author of "The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America's Past." Send an email to Jarrett

The powers that be in the U.K. appear eager to strip away every aspect of what it means to be British from their society and institutions.

According to a news release from the Bank of England, the country is set to remove historical figures from its currency and replace them with various non-offensive wildlife.

“For more than 50 years, the Bank has proudly showcased many inspirational historical figures who have helped shape national thought, innovation, leadership, and values on its banknotes,” the statement read. “The change to wildlife imagery, supported by the public consultation and feedback, provides an opportunity to celebrate another important aspect of the UK.”

The figures to be stripped from the banknotes are novelist Jane Austen, painter J.M.W. Turner, scientist Alan Turing, and perhaps most upsetting of all, Winston Churchill.

President Donald Trump recently said that U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer was no Churchill. In the not-too-distant future, young British subjects might respond to the Churchill reference: “Who?”

Among the criteria for new images, the bank noted that it must not be “divisive.”

“The theme should not involve imagery that would reasonably be offensive to, or exclude, any groups,” the bank release read.

According to one Nadeem Perera, one of the “experts” on the Bank of England’s panel to create new currency imagery, the decision to swap out historical figures for birds and badgers was “overdue.”

British wartime hero Winston Churchill to be REMOVED from £5 UK bank notes; replaced by picture of animals. Nadeem Perera, who sits on The Bank of England’s panel of wildlife experts said the decision was ‘overdue’ to replace historical figures with wildlife. Current bank… pic.twitter.com/UXvUQWbvbu— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) March 11, 2026

It’s remarkably tragic that after refusing to accept the euro and the vote for Brexit a decade ago, the U.K. is now engaging in a project of national self-erasure. And that’s ultimately what this is about.

The Bank of England made the currency change out to be just a routine bureaucratic swap of imagery following “public consultation,” but it’s hard to ignore the larger context.

Unlike in the U.S., where the Great Awokening and the war on history hit the wall of changing political and cultural tides, similar progressive movements continue institutionally unabated across the pond.

One U.K. institution after another has done its best to purge anything remotely English from the country. Historic statues have been torn down. Some were moved to museums to be “contextualized,” meaning shamed. Major museums have carried out the work of deleting their past or making it wholly false and unrecognizable.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which manages William Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, for instance, announced in 2025 that it will “decolonize” future celebrations of its namesake because it says his works could be used to promote “white supremacy.”

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

There is widespread movement intended to expunge British heritage and prepare its society for a glorious, sanitized, diverse, and likely tyrannical future. British politicians like Starmer are in thrall to the global Left and fear the Muslim bloc of voters that they’ve imported. To carry on their leftist project and appease the new arrivals, they’ve turned to historical erasure and censorship.

It’s not just historical memory that’s being purged. This is part of a much larger political project. The U.K. government’s anti-terrorism programs have flagged scary reading materials like “The Canterbury Tales,” “1984,” and “The Lord of the Rings” as potential leads to “far-right terrorism.”

Meanwhile, free speech is ruthlessly under assault as the government clearly aims to make British subjects afraid to criticize mass immigration and a constellation of various protected groups favored by the ruling class.

They want people to think twice about telling the truth lest the speech police come to their homes and take them away, a very real prospect in the modern U.K.

Just look at this video recently posted by the U.K. Counter Terrorism Policing network.

UK Counter Terrorism Police just dropped their latest ad for "countering terrorism".And this is the image they portrayed as the "potential terrorist".Anything to not "offend" the "faces of modern Britain". pic.twitter.com/MLG3GXS3Xa— Tommy Robinson ?? (@TRobinsonNewEra) March 5, 2026

This happens as long-standing English conventions like jury trials are pared back and done away with.

The House of Lords is even ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years.

I far prefer the American system that acknowledges no nobility, but there is something to be said about leaving an institution in place that has been around since the very advent of bicameralism.

This all makes me very sad. To see our British cousins abandon what made them great, to lose their identity and their liberty, is mortifying. It threatens the future of our once “special relationship,” and provides a chilling warning about the Left’s goals should they retake power.

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UK Will Remove Historical Figures From Currency in Latest Move to Erase National Heritage

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