The Tory London mayoral candidate denied institutional racism exists within the Metropolitan Police and endorsed a remark saying these with issues about cease and search have “something to hide”.
Susan Hall responded to a tweet by veteran MP Diane Abbott saying “there is not institutional racism in the Met” and accused her of “trying to cause division”. She made the tweet in summer time of 2020 as Black Lives Matter protests swept the world over within the wake of the homicide of George Floyd by a police officer in America.
Ms Hall additionally appreciated a tweet that was made simply days in the past that stated the one folks with issues about cease and search are these with “something to hide”. The tweet was in response to a publish the place she praised police for seizing a knife.
Today marks the twenty fifth anniversary of the discharge of the Macpherson Report, which declared the Met “institutionally racist” after its failure to correctly examine the racist homicide of London teenager Stephen Lawrence. Last yr Baroness Casey’s assessment into the Met, which was commissioned after the homicide of Sarah Everard by a Met police officer, discovered the London power continues to be “institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic”.
The damning report additionally stated the power’s use of cease and search, which disproportionately impacts Black folks, wanted “a fundamental reset”. Baroness Casey highlighted analysis that exhibits “larger numbers of Black people felt traumatised and humiliated by the experience of stop and search than other ethnic groups”.
Ms Hall was final yr accused of endorsing tweets referring to Enoch Powell, Islamophobic tropes about London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan and the parable that the 2020 US election was stolen from Donald Trump. She will go up towards Mr Khan on the 2024 London mayoral election on May 2.
Ms Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party final yr after writing a letter which prompt Jewish, Irish, and Traveller individuals are not topic to racism “all their lives”.
Labour MP Dawn Butler stated: “This latest tweet unearthed from the Tory candidate Susan Hall shows she’s utterly unfit to be Mayor. Not only is she outright denying the existence of institutional racism in the Met – a fact that has since been proven by Baroness Casey’s review – but she called out a Black woman for raising the issue, accusing her of trying to cause division.
“After claiming the Black community has a ‘problem with crime’, calling the much-loved Notting Hill carnival ‘dangerous’ and ‘appalling’, and endorsing the views of notorious racist Enoch Powell, this is yet more proof that London deserves someone who understands and appreciates our rich and wonderful diversity. That person isn’t Susan Hall.”
A spokesman for Susan Hall: “Susan always has and always will condemn racism in the Met, which Sadiq Khan has failed to tackle in his eight years in charge of the police.
“It is disappointing that Sadiq Khan and his allies voted towards Susan’s £200million crime plan on the London Assembly this week, which might have made our streets safer and geared up police with knife detection wands to make cease and search much less invasive and more practical.”