Own goal by BLM brigade

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WAS this the week that Black Lives Matter “lost the dressing room”?

Racial inequality is a cause for valid concern in this country and much more could and should be done to tackle it.

Black people, along with other minorities, should not suffer prejudice in employment, policing, education or anywhere else in the sort of decent, advanced society in which we all want to live.

While the sentiment behind the organisation is wholly admirable, some of its other goals are chilling, dangerous and plain wrong.

Organisations that raced to support BLM need to take a long, hard look at their actions if they failed to do their homework about this anonymous and anarchic group.

What was the Premier League doing when it supported the idea of players having the words Black Lives Matter on the back of their shirts instead of their names? It also let them “take the knee” before games. This is a movement that wants to “abolish” capitalism, yet you would struggle to find a better example of capitalism than football, in which a player can earn £300,000 each week for kicking a ball.

Remember that grotesque mural of what appears to be a group of Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of seemingly oppressed workers – the one that got Jeremy Corbyn into trouble a couple of years back? BLM Oxford used it to promote a rally and only took it down after someone of Jewish ancestry complained. That prompted the Premier League to clarify it is only seeking to support “a single objective of eradicating racial prejudice”.

It is shameful that so few have done any research to gain a fuller picture of BLM, who also want to “de-fund” and abolish the police.

Huge credit then to footballers such as Matt Le Tissier, Chris Sutton and Patrice Evra, who have spoken out about what seems to be the blanket instruction for all pundits to wear a BLM lapel badge.

BT Sport’s Chris Sutton wrote: “There is a difference between Black Lives Matter the message and Black Lives Matter the organisation.”

And when something as achingly liberal as the BBC reportedly bans the badges from being worn on screen, it tells you everything you need to know.

These people make Corbyn look like Thatcher – but to be relegated to the sidelines after such a promising opening is an own goal indeed.