The real two-tier policing

The far right often accuses the police of far right policing (Picture: Alisdare Hickson)

Before Notting Hill Carnival—a multicultural spectacle with a history of anti-racism—even began, the right wing media dredged up claims of “two-tier” policing. Amid a far right emboldened by racist rhetoric, some got their piece in early.

The Telegraph newspaper reported that ex-cop Mike Neville said police are hesitant to make arrests for fear of being called racist. The retired Scotland Yard chief said if the carnival were a football game—mainly attended by white people—it would be cancelled.

Accusing the “woke” police of two-tier policing the carnival is simply trying to play on racist stereotypes about black violence and crime. The idea that the carnival presents any greater threat to safety than other mass events is a racist attack. Glastonbury music festival has similar crime rates.

Charles Moore, also in The Telegraph, said the police deal with “the rest of us, the great majority” differently to “self-identifying ethnic or religious groups”. The idea that this “great (white) majority” is being unfairly treated by police was Nazi Tommy Robinson’s excuse for recent far right violence.  

But there certainly is two-tier policing in Britain.  Police stop and search one child every 14 hours—and that child is four times more likely to be black. Police failed to stop “the great majority” when fascists set fire to hotels housing refugees.

The real two-tier policing flows from the nature of the cops and state racism.