Rafe Heydel-Mankoo has slammed plans to drop British heroes like Winston Churchill from banknotes as an “attempt to create a new Britain”.
Speaking to GB News, the historian was reacting to research commissioned by the Bank of England, which branded historical figures “elitist and divisive”.
The market research study conducted by Savanta in October 2025 advised central bank officials that such portraits presented “a backwards-looking vision of the UK that carries too great a risk of division and controversy”.
Among the icons expected to be cut and replaced with British wildlife are Winston Churchill, Alan Turing and Jane Austen.
“This is just part of the wider war in our history,” Mr Heydel-Mankoo began.
Reflecting on the memories of his mother’s family from behind the Iron Curtain in Poland, he said: “This will be eerily and scarily familiar.”
“The pulling down of statues, the renaming of streets and of parks, the changing of the rewriting of your national history, the changing of banknotes.
“Severing the connection between a people and their past is the best way to make them ripe for the new national myths.
The Bank of England is set to drop Winston Churchill and other figures from its banknotes
|GETTY
He said these new myths would be that “diversity built Britain” and that “Britain has always been multicultural”.
“This is an attempt to recreate a new Britain for society.”Delving into the changing of banknotes specifically, Mr Heydel-Mankoo insisted they were “symbols of national identity and of sovereignty.”
“They rank right up there with the flag. The crown, with our coat of arms and our honour system, is a symbol of the British nation.
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'This is just part of the wider war in our history,' Rafe Heydel-Mankoo declared
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The historian stressed that this was particularly important as “we live in an age now where people are so ignorant of history”.
“Banknotes provide a subconscious history lesson, and that daily reinforcement is being deliberately removed, and that is lamentable.
“It's safe to say now that the decision to replace historical figures with nature and all this sort of stuff was a deliberate stitch-up by the Bank of England.”
Mr Heydel-Mankoo argued the central bank had been “clearly captured by progressive woke ideology.
“This is part of the longer war on our history by institutions that no longer reflect the feelings of the British public.”
However, former Liberal Democrat councillor Mathew Hulbert argued that his interlocutor needed to “lighten up”.
“Which of us doesn't like a puffin? Which of us doesn't like a dolphin?” He asked.
“We love these creatures. I bet your fellow guest loves them. Let's ask him, shall we?
“Okay, Rafe, how do you feel about dolphins?”
“There's nothing uniquely British about the dolphin or about any of the characters that they want to introduce to our banknotes,” the historian shot back.