London – Europe Brief News, Labour party MPs urged the British Prime Minister Boris not to interfere in the process of selecting a new head of the Metropolitan police.
The Metropolitan police is now investigating whether the Prime Minister and other staff members of Downing Street broke lockdown laws.
Other Tory MPs are concerned that an ally of the Prime Minister briefed the media that the Met would need to be very certain before considering fining the Jonhson.
The head of the Met Police, Cressida Dick, stepped down on Thursday after the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, said she lost confidence. However, the choice of selecting a new officer will be up to Johnson ally, Priti Patel, a longtime ally of Boris.
Khan said he had lost confidence that Dick could improve an allegedly misogynistic, racist and closed culture blighting Britain’s most prominent force.
The Liberal Democrats have argued that the cross-party Commons home affairs committee should endorse a replacement given the circumstances.
“Boris Johnson is under criminal investigation by the Met. We cannot leave it to him and his allies to pick its next leader,” said Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dems’ home affairs spokesperson. “Any impression that the Conservatives are hand-picking someone who will go easy on No 10 would be disastrous for public confidence in the police.”
Earlier, the Times quoted an unnamed “senior ally” of Johnson as saying police should be extremely wary about any decision to fine the prime minister, an event that could see him toppled.
“There is inevitably a degree of discretion here,” they said. “Do you want the Metropolitan police deciding who the prime minister is? They have to be very certain.”
Priti Patel said on Friday that “strong and decisive new leadership” would be required to “restore public confidence” in the force after a series of scandals.
The National Black Police Association (NBPA) leader said Dick had been “the most defensive and dismissive” leader of a British police force.
“The vast majority of police officers put on their uniform and do their best to protect the public,” said Insp Andy George, “but time and again we have seen a culture of fear within the [Met] – a fear of challenging inappropriate behaviour, and even when that behaviour is challenged, it is rarely dealt with robustly. The officer reporting discrimination can often find themselves being targeted for speaking out.
“Defending the indefensible and failing to tackle the wider issues of racism, misogyny and bullying allow bullies and poor behaviour to thrive and does a disservice to the many hardworking police officers across London and the UK. I have the privilege of speaking to many leaders in policing, and I found Dame Cressida Dick to be the most defensive and dismissive leader I met.”
Separately, it emerged on Friday that the Met initially declined in December last year to investigate widespread reports of illicit social gatherings in and around Downing Street in part because no one had admitted them and there was no footage on social media.
The details emerged in a document connected to a challenge to the decision not to investigate by the Good Law Project’s legal campaign group, which is seeking a judicial review of the Met’s decision and reasoning.
In response to the claim, a document from the police force’s lawyers pointed to guidelines saying it did not investigate Covid breaches retrospectively, given their relatively minor nature and limited resources.
When the first decision was made, any details about the gatherings were “fairly vague”, the document said, detailing the reasons given by a senior officer, whose name had been redacted.
The officer, it said, “observed that the press reports did not identify who had been at the gatherings, no one had come forward to admit presence at any of the gatherings, and there was no evidence from social media showing these gatherings taking place, and from which those present could be identified”.
It went on: “It followed that if these events had taken place, the organisers could not be identified from the material available to the police at that time, and nor could [the officer] draw any conclusions as to whether the gatherings breached the Covid regulations, and if so, whether those present at the gatherings had no reasonable excuse for their presence at the gatherings.”
The force changed its mind last month and is now investigating the claims. But Jolyon Maugham, the director of the Good Law Project, said the reasons were “profoundly troubling”. He said: “It points to a Met that does not want to investigate potential criminality in government or is excessively deferential to those in power.”
Source: The Guardian
