Home Secretary Suella Braverman has called for a “commonsense” approach to enforcing the law in England and Wales and has said there is a “damaging” perception from the general public that too often the police are actually “supporting militant protesters.”
Britain’s biggest police force, the beleaguered Metropolitan Police, missed its target by around 1,000.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised when he took over at 10 Downing Street six months ago “stronger communities and safer streets,” and he added, “At the heart of that pledge is recruiting more police officers than at any time in our history, and today we have delivered on that promise.”
There are now nearly 150,000 police officers in England and Wales, more than 3,500 higher than the previous record in 2010, shortly before the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition introduced austerity and cuts to police budgets.
‘Criminal Justice, Not Social Justice’
On Tuesday night Braverman made a speech in Westminster in which she urged all police officers to stop “pandering to politically correct preoccupations” and focus on “criminal justice, not social justice.”She said police officers should not take the knee, show support for critical race theory, or intervene in the gender critical debate online.
Afterwards she said: “There’s a perception at times that they are supporting the militant protesters, as I said, giving them cups of tea or dancing along with them. I think that from a public confidence point of view all of that is damaging.”
Braverman said: “They need to be seen to be serious. They need to be seen to be responding actively and swiftly to the crimes people are experiencing.”
But Braverman said police officers should spend less time worrying about “hurt feelings” and “contested narratives” and focus on tackling serious crime.
The Police Federation, which represents more than 130,000 officers from the rank of constable to chief inspector, accused the government of misleading the public over the figures for new recruits.
The Chairman of the Police Federation, Steve Hartshorn, said: “The 20,000 new police officers joining the service in England and Wales has been desperately needed. However, the government’s claim of the recruitment drive resulting in a stronger, healthily staffed service is misleading and misplaced.”
He said: “Effectively the government has backfilled the more than 21,000 full time equivalent officers cut by the government in 2010. It must not be overlooked that officers have been trying to cover the workloads associated to those losses and the additional 23,000 police staff roles that were cut at that time.”
Tories ‘Taking the Country for Fools’
Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The Conservatives are taking the country for fools. They cut 20,000 police officers from our streets. Now they expect the public to be grateful for a police replacement programme that still leaves 6,000 fewer police out on the beat and 9,000 fewer officers in real terms compared to the last Labour government as the population has grown.”Colin Talbot, a professor of government at the University of Manchester, wrote on Twitter: “The reduction in police numbers was more than 20,000, and they were mostly experienced officers, replaced by poorly vetted raw recruits. PCSOs and support staff have also been culled. Policing has nowhere near the capacity it did in 2010.”
ITV News questioned the quality of vetting of new recruits after they submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act and found big variations in the number of people failing vetting procedures.
It said the number failing vetting in Leicestershire was less than 1 percent, while in Cleveland it was 15 percent.
ITV also pointed out that after the Sarah Everard case, the vetting guidelines were toughened up and the number failing vetting jumped from 2 percent to 10 percent in City of London Police, and from 6 percent to 14 percent in Bedfordshire, but it said overall most forces reported no big increase in vetting failures.
