Using the Guardian as a source? Not the best choice, my friend.
Here is video of an interview with Yingling where he indicates the UTR guys and says:
(Regarding the statue defense) “I can completely sympathize with them and the fact that they want to preserve their heritage. The Civil war was a big part of our country’s history, and there’s people out there that have false perceptions of why that war was actually fought. And a lot of people see that as their heritage. They have relatives that fought in that war.”
Shockingly different than what the Guardian portrayed. Dollars to donuts that The Guardian misrepresented his comments. Notice that he personally never identified who he was speaking about in the Guardian reported remark. That leaves the Guardian attributing it to anyone they want.