unlimited company, SMV Investments, that has major investments in defence contracting, tobacco, genetically modified agriculture and the petroleum industry. Merchant Venturers serve on the boards of many local charitable and cultural organisations, and are guaranteed seats on the University of Bristol Court and the Downs Committee. It quotes Paul Burton of the university's School of Policy Studies as saying, "they exert quite a bit of influence and we, the people of Bristol, don't know much about them and can't hold them to account". In January 2022 Thangam Debbonaire, the MP for Bristol West whose constituency includes the Merchants’ headquarters in Clifton, told the Bristol Post that she believed it was time for the society to disband, calling them an "unaccountable, undemocratic network with no place in a modern, multicultural Bristol". Statue of Edward Colston On 7 June 2020, during international Black Lives Matter demonstrations provoked by the murder of George Floyd, a group of protestors in Bristol pulled down the 1895 statue of Edward Colston that stood in Magpie Park in The Centre, Bristol, objecting to the veneration of Edward Colston, a slave-trader, and pushed it into the harbour. During ensuing debate over the legitimacy of this act, the Society of Merchant Venturers was accused of having used its influence to block previous attempts to remove the statue legally. In response to the statue's removal, a spokesperson for the Merchant Venturers promised the society would "continue to educate itself about systemic racism". Heraldry The company's arms are blazoned as follows: Arms: Barry wavy of eight argent and azure, on a bend or, a dragon passant with wings indorsed and tail extended vert, on achief gules, a lion passant guardant of the third, between two bezants. Crest: In a ducal coronet or, a main-mast of the last with pennon flying argent, charged with a cross gules, on the round top a man in armour proper, on his dexter arm a truncheon, his sinister hand supporting a carved shield of the second, from the round top six pike staves, three on each side issuing bendways of the first, the rigging from the round top to the coronet sable. Supporters: The dexter, a mermaid in the sea, all proper crined or, the middle fins at the joining of the bodies of the last, holding in her sinister hand a mirror of the first, and supporting with her dexter hand an anchor of the