Police Minimise Far-Right Threats Due To Prioritising Racist Political Agendas

London – Recent revelations reported by The Guardian have highlighted a significant failure in the UK’s policing strategy, exposing the police leadership’s dismissal of the far-right threat after an initial risk assessment deemed it ‘minimal.’

This failure is not merely an oversight but a manifestation of a broader, politically motivated agenda. The police have strayed from their duty to serve and protect the public by aligning themselves with Whitehall’s embrace of far-right ideologies. Police leaders have further contributed to normalising these dangerous narratives by prioritising their careers over critically challenging directives from Whitehall.

The PREVENT programme has institutionalised this form of politicised policing, which disproportionately targets Muslims and minorities while downplaying the threat posed by the far right. The Shawcross review of PREVENT exemplified this shift by recommending a focus on Muslims. Similarly, John Woodcock, the Government’s adviser on political violence and disruption, issued a report that sought to curtail civil society’s capacity to mobilise, advocating for various policing and legal measures to achieve this. This approach reflects a political consensus that has diverted policing efforts from addressing the resurgence of fascism—on a scale not seen since the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini in 1945—and instead focuses on suppressing the anti-genocide movement by forcing the police to waste resources on those carrying placards ridiculing complicit politicians as coconuts.

The strategy document underscores this shift by euphemistically downplaying the dangers of racist movements, while intensifying efforts to surveil, control, and silence anti-genocide voices in the midst of a livestreamed genocide.

The tradition of policing by consent has effectively been abandoned. Undermined by political interests and entrenched institutional racism, policing in the UK is increasingly authoritarian.

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