The National Black Police Association (NBPA) has called for a boycott of joining the Met police for the first time in 20 years.
The NBPA has called for ethnic minorities to refuse to join the Met protest at a ‘racist and vexatious’ misconduct investigation into a leading officer. This boycott will continue until ‘there is more rigorous accountability… and more resources are given to the Met BPA so they can provide wrap-around support to those in need’.
Chair of the Met Black Police Association, Charles Ehikoya, has been targeted after voicing concerns around racism and the poor behaviour of senior officers. Details of the misconduct have not been made public; however, the NBPA claimed that Ehikoya was racially abused on WhatsApp. They state that Ehikoya was not treated as a victim; instead, there was deliberate and concerted effort to find evidence against him.
President of the NBPA, Andy George, said: ‘The timing of this complaint leads me to believe that there is a desire to remove any dissenting voices from public discourse. Given the crisis in confidence highlighted through so many incidents and reports, I cannot say that we can adequately protect and support officers of colour within the MPS [Metropolitan police service]’.
The NBPA highlighted the findings of last year’s landmark report by Baroness Casey, which exposed that Black officers were 81% more likely to face misconduct than their white counterparts.
Lee Jasper, the chair of the Alliance for Police Accountability campaign group, said: ‘The MPS’s weaponisation of the misconduct system against Black officers is unacceptable. It demonstrates the reality of a toxic policing culture of racism and discrimination that must be brutally confronted and completely dismantled.’
He declared that the refusal of the Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, to accept the Casey Report finding of institutional racism in the Met was ‘a fundamental blind spot, preventing any real progress’.
Ultimately, the Alliance for Police Accountability voiced that ‘the threat of a national Black policing recruitment boycott could lead to reset introducing radical, genuine, transparent antiracist reform with the MPS’.
