Short note on the dangers of a political police force

The duty upon the police to be politically neutral.

This is set out in the Code of Ethics. Para 2.1 of the 2014 Code sets out the ‘policing principles’ – Accountability, Fairness, Honesty, Integrity, Leadership, Objectivity, Openness, Respect and Selflessness.

The specific prohibition is set out at para 6.5

Police officers must not take any active part in politics. This is intended to prevent you from placing yourself in a position where your impartiality may be questioned.

Examples of the police failing to remain politically neutral.

Sadly, the examples of this are legion. Many forces still remain ‘Stonewall Champions’ despite the ever growing concern about public bodies paying a campaigning lobby group to provide them with ‘advice’. Stonewall has variously campaigned for ‘self identification’ – the right for a man to declare he is a woman on his declaration alone – and an end to single sex spaces.

Social media is awash with examples of various police forces posting pictures of officers posing with ‘trans flags’, even riot shields painted in the ‘trans’ colours of pink and blue. Identifiable and senior serving officers publish on social media their support for the notion that the police should ‘love everyone’ and deal harshly with ‘hate’ – which appears often to be nothing more than people expressing scepticism that it is possible to change our biological sex.

We are not aware of any other group who are routinely and publicly celebrated by the police in this manner.

Police support for gender identity ideology is a political activity which directly conflicts with the Code of Ethics.

The politicisation of the police not only creates a perception of bias and partiality that has serious negative implications for public trust and confidence but leads to actual failures in operational decisions that put citizens at risk of harm.

A clear and recent example of this was the failure of policing by Avon and Somerset at a rally in Bristol on Sunday 19th June 2022 organised by ‘Standing for Women’, a group which asserts the immutability of biological sex as important for the safety and dignity of women and girls.

The police failed to maintain any distance between a group of largely middled aged women who had come to talk about their rights and a group of largely young men, dressed in black with full face coverings, who sought to violently intimidate the women meeting. It was only by luck that a major incident was avoided.

A further and very concerning example involves Jennifer Swayne, a disabled woman who was arrested and detained for 10 hours for ‘stickering’ in Newport in support of her ‘gender critical’ belief, while trans identified males who had placed various stickers calling for women to be shot if they did not ‘STFU’ (shut the fuck up) went uninvestigated and unchallenged.

Source: Short note on the dangers of a political police force