A 38-year-old man has been arrested after the statue of Winston Churchill outside the Houses of Parliament was defaced with graffiti calling the former prime minister a “Zionist war criminal”.

The Metropolitan police said the man was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage on Friday morning.

Other phrases including “stop the genocide” and “free Palestine” were sprayed in red paint on the bronze sculpture in Parliament Square, central London.

A Met spokesperson said: “Shortly after 4am 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. He remains in custody.”

Last December, both the Met and Greater Manchester police said that anyone chanting the slogan “globalise the intifada” would face arrest.

The decision by the two police forces came after two terror attacks: at Bondi Beach in Australia, and at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on 2 October.

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

A Greater London Authority spokesperson said: “We are appalled by this vandalism to the statue of Sir Winston Churchill and work is under way to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible.”

A No 10 spokesperson said: “It’s obviously a disgrace. It’s completely abhorrent. Churchill was a great Briton. This government will always stand up for our values and the perpetrator must be held to account. We’re glad the police have made an arrest.”

The former prime minister’s statue has been vandalised several times in the past, including during protests. It was scrawled with graffiti accusing Churchill of being a racist in June 2020 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 after defacing the statue by painting “racist” on its plinth during a climate protest.

The 3.6-metre monument, created by Ivor Roberts-Jones, was unveiled in 1973 by the former prime minister’s wife, Clementine Churchill. It is one of 12 statues on or around Parliament Square, most of well-known statesmen such as Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.