Suella Braverman, Home Secretary and Conservative MP for Fareham, has once again slammed what she describes as “woke” policing.
Content warning: This story includes topics that could make some readers feel uncomfortable and/or upset.
Her comments in the Commons on 19 September appeared to criticise how Pride events are monitored by the force and came mere weeks after she ordered a review into “political activism in police”.
Nick Fletcher, another Conservative MP, began by sharing his belief that police would solve more crimes “if they started putting more bobbies on the beat and stopped promoting unscientific ideologies”.
“My honourable friend is quite right,” Braverman responded. “We pay the police to fight crime. Whether that’s a focus on anti-social behaviour, the nuisance bikers or burglaries, as he’s mentioned.”
She added: “They are there to keep people safe. We do not pay them to wave flags at parades, to dance with drag queens or to campaign.
“That’s why I finally ended all association with Stonewall at the Home Office and why I expect all PCCs and chief constables to focus on cutting crime and rebuilding confidence, not playing politics.”
“There is deep seated homophobia within the Met”
The Met Police recently announced the return of full time LGBTQIA+ liaison officers in London as part of its “commitment to rebuilding the trust” with the community.
The officers are being brought in to address the Casey Report, which was released in March 2023 and concluded that the Met is in need of a “complete overhaul” due to being institutionally homophobic, racist and sexist.
Louise Casey spent a year investigating the Met after a review was commissioned in the wake of one of its officers, Wayne Couzens, abducting, raping and murdering Sarah Everard in March 2021.
READ MORE: Met Police is institutionally homophobic, racist and sexist, review finds
She said the force is likely to have more officers like Couzens, as well as serial rapist David Carrick, who also worked for the Met.
The 363-page report also found evidence of “deep seated homophobia” in the force, as well as evidence of widespread bullying and racism.
“There is deep seated homophobia within the Met, as shown by the fact that almost one in five lesbian, gay and bisexual Met employees have personally experienced homophobia and 30% of LGBTQ+ employees have said they had been bullied,” part of it said. “Trust, confidence and fairness scores among LGBTQ+ Londoners have fallen significantly.”
Met’s failures to capture serial killer Stephen Port “could happen again”
Just a month later, findings from an inspection by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) showed that the Met’s failures to capture serial killer Stephen Port “could happen again” as the force has not learned enough from the case.
From June 2014 to September 2015, Port murdered at least four men – Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25 – before being arrested on 15 October 2015.
READ MORE: Stephen Port: Failures in Met Police’s murder investigation “could happen again”, inspection finds
Port met his victims online (including gay dating app Grindr) before leading them to his home in Barking, London where they were given lethal doses of a date rape drug before being raped and killed.
The MPS failed to link the fatalities despite the striking similarities between them, such as the bodies of three of the four known victims being discovered at the same graveyard in Barking.
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