Banksy Claims the Blindfolded Flag-Bearer on a London Plinth, and Westminster Says It’s Staying

Banksy has put a statue on a plinth in central London, and the man on top of it can’t see where he’s going. The sculpture shows a suited figure striding off the edge of its pedestal with a billowing flag wrapped over his face. It appeared in Waterloo Place in the early hours of Wednesday (April 29) with “Banksy” scrawled at the base, and the artist confirmed it was his on Thursday.

The proof was a video on his Instagram, a dry, humorous cut of the work being unloaded by crane in the dark. One passerby in the footage is not impressed. “I don’t like it. That’s a nice statue up there -- I prefer that,” he tells an off-camera interviewer, pointing up the street, per AFP.

Where it sits

The traffic island is the point. Waterloo Place, in St James’s near Buckingham Palace, is lined with imperial bronze: statues of King Edward VII and Florence Nightingale, plus the Crimean War Memorial, with a gilded Athena over the front of the Athenaeum Club. Hypebeast notes that dropping a blinded flag-bearer into that company is “politically provocative,” and fans have read it as a comment on blind patriotism, or on how power structures walk themselves off a cliff. Those are fan readings, not the artist’s.

Read moreAn AI Mural in Banksy’s Hometown Got Banksy Wrong, and Bristol’s Artists Noticed

A spokeswoman for the artist told AFP the piece was positioned on a traffic island in Pall Mall where Banksy said “there was a bit of a gap.” The statement called it an “unsolicited monument,” which is the nearest he came to a title.

Why it matters

Statues are not what Banksy is best known for. His name was made in spray paint, starting in Bristol in the early 1990s, and AP points out that his street work is often targeted by thieves and vandals. His recent London run has been short-lived. The courthouse mural of a judge hitting a protester with a gavel, which appeared on the Royal Courts of Justice in September, was covered up swiftly, as CBS News reported.

This time, the authorities are cheering. Westminster City Council told Reuters it has no plans to remove the work and has already taken steps to protect it. In a statement, a council spokesperson said:

We welcome Banksy’s latest sculpture in Westminster, which makes a striking addition to the city’s vibrant public art scene

Westminster City Council spokesperson, Reuters, via Fox

That makes it a rarity: a Banksy that arrives with the establishment’s blessing. For how the earlier London pieces and their cleanup bills played out, see our report on the U.K. taxpayer cost of Banksy’s murals and the Bristol AI mural row.

Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.