Politicised police are misrepresenting the law, new report reveals

Fair Cop highlights widespread institutional capture by trans lobby groups and calls on forces to adopt “Her Majesty’s Rule” on political affiliation

19th September 2020

Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely flouting their oath “to serve without fear or favour” by openly promoting political causes and misrepresenting the law, a new report reveals.

Policing Through the Looking Glass is the first report by Fair Cop, the watchdog founded to highlight the politicisation of the police and the harassment of people who express gender-critical views.

The product of 18 months’ analysis, the report details the extent of the police’s capture by Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids and other trans lobby groups. This includes:

  • How the police routinely misrepresent the Equality Act 2010, including their substitution of Stonewall’s unlawful definition of “transgender” for the actual protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment.
  • Police forces’ endorsement of political campaigns, including their support for highly-contested “trans rights” demands during the Government’s consultation on proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act.
  • The unquestioning repetition of false statistics, including the claim that “one in 12 trans people have a chance of being murdered”, tweeted by the College of Policing.
  • Forces’ close relationships with lobby groups, including annual subscriptions to Stonewall and their annual spending on rainbow flags, epaulettes and other political symbols.

The report concludes with ten recommendations for police forces to ensure that they return to their principles of political neutrality as defined by the College of Policing’s Code of Ethics.

These recommendations include calls for Chief Constables to remove their affiliation with political groups such as Stonewall, to reaffirm their forces’ commitment to neutrality, and to adopt “Her Majesty’s Rule”, where the political opinions of any police officer or force should never be disclosed.

“The police used to enforce laws passed by Parliament, but we are now in the extraordinary situation where the police are following guidelines written by partisan lobby groups,” said Harry Miller, co-author of the report. “This amounts to nothing less than a de facto annexation of our police, with unaccountable and un-elected groups writing the rules. 

“It is absurd that the police are paying for training from overtly political organisations that misrepresent the law, and then implementing a bootleg version of the law. And it’s no surprise that so many people in recent years have suffered police harassment for saying things that don’t contravene any law.”

“The British bobby used to be a byword for impartiality, but in recent years that reputation has been shredded by their wholesale adoption of trans ideology,” said Fair Cop’s co-founder Rob Jessel.

“The transgender debate is convulsing the nation and the politics are far from settled. The police should never voice support for any special interest group, especially not those that are campaigning to change the law.”

Download Policing through the looking glass


For further information or to arrange a briefing with Fair Cop spokespeople, please contact

Rob Jessel
Press Officer, Fair Cop
[email protected]
www.faircop.org.uk 

 

About Fair Cop

Fair Cop was founded in May 2019 after a series of incidents of police harassing people who expressed gender critical views online, including Harry Miller who brought a Judicial Review of Humberside Police and the College of Policing.

In February 2020 the High Court ruled that Humberside Police had acted unlawfully in recording his tweets as a “non crime hate incident”, while upholding the College of Policing’s Hate Crimes Operational Guidance (HCOG).

Mr Miller and Fair Cop are currently appealing against this element of the ruling, with an update expected soon.

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