Ex Labour Home Secretary claims that the pendulum has swung too far on anti-racism in the police

In a stand out moment during an interview with Laura Kuenssberg, former Labour Home Secretary, and now Lord, David Blunkett, suggested that UK policing’s image in the public imagination, had gone from suggestions of outright racism in the force, (referencing the Macpherson report), to people saying it’s woke. Lord Blunkett continued by suggesting that it isn’t the job of the police to participate in the debate over fairness, but instead, it’s job is simply to deliver to targets set by the government.

The exchange was in reference to a report to be published on Monday 6 July, in which Lord Blunkett and co-writer, former Conservative policing minister, Lord Herbert, by the College of Policing, which will recommend substantial “modernisation” of recruitment, development and monitoring in the service. Incidentally an area of business that the College of Policing receives in the order of £50million a year in public funding.

According to its own website https://www.college.police.uk/ the College of Policing is an “operationally independent non-departmental public body”. That means it’s a government-funded organisation that carries out specific public or administrative services, but operates entirely free from direct day-to-day political interference from government ministers. We pay for it, but have no say in what it does. Interestingly, the College of Policing accounts from 2025 and 2024 show increasing losses and growing staff costs. In 2025 for example, on a revenue (from public funds) of £47million, the organisation managed to lose £48million, with staff costs increasing from £52million to £61million. Hardly an exemplar to any public service.

Since the first mention of “two-tier-Kier” and it’s more general form, two-tier policing, around the time of the 2024 anti-immigration riots, (the phrase attributed to Elon Musk on his X platform), the idea that UK policing has become prejudiced against white suspects as opposed to non-white suspects, has taken hold online amongst a far right audience, and has been repeatedly posed by conventional media outlets, as an issue of genuine public concern. Against all available data, and supported by nothing but noise and prejudice, the term has been repeatedly injected into the public conversation, including by the Leader of the Opposition, Kimi Badenoch, who used the murder of a white victim allegedly by a British Sikh, as an opportunity to score political points, against the express wishes of the victim’s father.

So what is this all about?

It’s not that Lord Blunkett is claiming that two-tier policing exists, but his refusal to push back on the idea is at the very least, unhelpful. The Metropolitan Police has been found to be institutionally racist by both Lord Macpherson, in his seminal 1999 report into the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and the 2023 Baroness Casey Review, triggered by the rape and murder of a Sarah Everard by an acting police officer. The idea that this situation has suddenly been reversed across the nation, is risible. Blunkett’s avoidance of dealing with this ghost in the machine, is all the indication we need of his lack of appreciation of the fundamental importance of defending the truth in the face of massive far right propaganda, ultimately aimed at undermining confidence not only in the police, but in the government itself. Two-tier policing is a rallying cry for the far right. It’s claim that white working class men have been systematically put at a disadvantage to the benefit of non-white British people and immigrants, is the spark that is igniting a very dangerous political movement: one that has already stepped over the bounds of terror on a number of occasions, both in mainland UK and on the streets of Northern Ireland.

Lord Blunkett has a record of illiberal criminal justice policy making. During his term in office, 2001-2004, he brought in a number of illiberal, or punitive laws, including: the Anti-Social Behaviour Order, a mandatory National Identity Card scheme - not passed into law, and a further tightening of the asylum and immigration laws, increasing deportations and expanding resources in the Home Office. While the Blair government did improve conditions for working British people: reducing child poverty and investing heavily in education, there was little evidence of moral leadership in helping white British people to come to terms with the race based divisions in UK society, at least not in the criminal justice system, which continued to charge and convict disproportionately non-white suspects.

Why is the two-tier policing false narrative being accommodated? 

The Labour government under Sir Kier Starmer, has avoided conflict with calls from the far right to impose ever stricter controls on immigration and now to press back on systems devised to improve equity in policing - in a mirror image of the MAGA anti-DEI propaganda. Labour’s oft-repeated narrative that its 2024 election win rested on appeasing Red Wall voters, whose rejection of Labour under previous leaders, had led to fourteen years in the wilderness, has clearly guided policy and communications under Sir Kier Starmer. The far right must not be crossed - “there are good people on both sides” as Trump once famously said. So it's no surprise that Lord Blunkett is treading carefully. However, it’s also an indication of a lack of moral certainty in the leadership and a willingness to allow victims of illiberal laws and far right intimidation, to suffer in the name of Labour holding onto power. In the local elections Labour lost more seats due to voters switching to the Green Party, than they did through voters moving rightwards. Lord Blunkett’s calls for the police to avoid participating in ethical arguments over equity in its force, reminds me of calls for politics to be kept out of sport, and the BBC’s stance on balance as being simply the inclusion of opposite views without any consideration of which most closely represents the truth.

Sir Kier Starmer has lost his leadership, not because he was too soft on immigration, or too woke on policing, but because he offered no clear moral vision for his own party, and by extension, for the nation. Like an AI agent answering difficult moral questions, he has preferred to avoid direct conflict and as a result, the far right has managed to lodge its two-tier policing propaganda into the collective cultural imagination.

Will Andy Burnham do anything differently? At this stage, I’m not very hopeful.