The dumping of a statue of slave-trader Edward Colston into Bristol Harbour yesterday has prompted renewed calls for Oxford's Cecil Rhodes statue to go.

A petition on Change.org has gained almost 5,000 signatures and urges Oxford University's Oriel College to remove its 'racist statue'.

It adds: "Oxford claims to be in support of creating an equal space for students of all backgrounds, but how can they with a glorified white supremacist as a figurehead for one of their colleges?

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"Oxford needs to take down the statue of Cecil Rhodes if they are ever to prove that the University is truly dedicated to equality and racial justice."

A major campaign in 2016 named Rhodes Must Fall failed to persuade the college remove the statue.

But there has been a renewed focus on the controversial monument since the toppling of Colston's statue during anti-racism demonstration, one of many in the UK sparked by the death of George Floyd while he was under arrest in Minneapolis in the United States last month.