A 38-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage after graffiti was sprayed on the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, the Metropolitan Police said.

The statue was defaced with graffiti branding the former prime minister a "Zionist war criminal".

Other phrases including "Stop the Genocide" and "Free Palestine" were sprayed in red paint on the bronze sculpture in Westminster, central London. Further graffiti reads "Never again is Now" and "Globalise the Intifada".

The statue has been cordoned off and was being cleaned on Friday morning.

A Met Police spokesperson said: "Shortly after 0400hrs on Friday 27 February a man was seen spraying graffiti on the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square.

"The first officers were on the scene within two minutes. The man - who is 38 - was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage."

In December both the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police announced anyone chanting "globalise the intifada" would face arrest.

The decision by the two forces came in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack, and the terror attack at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester in October.

The former prime minister's statue has been vandalised several times in the past, including during protests.

In June 2020 it was scrawled with graffiti accusing Churchill of being a racist, during a Black Lives Matter protest triggered by the death of George Floyd in the US.

Later that year, in October, an Extinction Rebellion activist was ordered to pay more than £1,500 for defacing the statue by painting "racist" on its plinth during a climate protest.

The 12ft (3.6m) monument, created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, was unveiled in 1973 by the wartime prime minister's widow Lady Churchill.

It is one of 12 statues on or around Parliament Square, most of well-known statesmen such as Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.