TIME TO END ECO MOB RULE, POLICE ARE TOLD

Home Secretary blasts forces’ failure to tackle protesters and tells them: Get a grip

POLICE forces must ‘stop humouring’ eco activists, Suella Braverman said yesterday.

The Home Secretary accused officers of letting protests get out of control because of their ‘reluctance’ to tackle ‘criminal disruption’. Her demand came after Just Stop Oil activists brought more chaos to the M25, leading to a crash in which a constable was injured.

She suggested that members of the public were taking the law into their own hands because they had lost faith in the police.

But her remarks drew a sharp response from Scotland Yard chief Sir Mark Rowley, who said: ‘We can’t take snipers to people who are climbing the gantries.’

The row came as an Extinction Rebellion member and Green Party

HOME Secretary Suella Braverman has told police chiefs she wants officers fighting crime, not ‘debating gender on Twitter’.

Speaking at a conference in Westminster, she said police should not face ‘politically correct’ distractions but should focus on ‘common sense policing’.

Her comments came after a senior policeman urged others to ‘ stand tall’ and defend themselves against accusations of being woke.

The outgoing chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Martin Hewitt, said officers should defend their actions if they are effective in building public confidence.

Mrs Braverman told the NPCC’s joint annual conference with the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners: ‘The way to ensure public confidence in the police is to focus on getting the basics right. What I call “common sense policing”. The kind of policing the law-abiding majority deserves and expects.

‘No politically correct distractions, just good old-fashioned policing – with a relentless focus on making our streets, homes and transport networks safer.’ Praising Greater Manchester Chief

Constable Stephen Watson, saying he ‘rejects woke policing’, she added: ‘Our police officers’ time is precious and the public want the police to be tackling crime, not debating gender on Twitter.

‘I have asked my officials to revisit the issue of non-crime hate incidents as a first step, as I want to be sure that we are allowing you to prioritise your time to deal with threats to people and their property.’

However Mr Hewitt hit back and said police should not be ‘cowed’ by the ‘woke’ label: ‘Calling something woke is an easy one-liner that will get you a headline and it’s great on social media but I don’t think it’s particularly helpful.

‘Whatever community people are from they have got to feel that police are there for them and for some communities we have to do more to make sure they recognise that.

‘We absolutely should be doing that and we shouldn’t be cowed when someone goes out publicly and accuses us of being woke.’ It came as Britain’s top officer said police are more worried about not filling in forms correctly than they are about confronting dangerous criminals.

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said officers are swamped by bureaucracy and non-policing matters, with only one in five calls to the force being about crime.

He told delegates at the summit that officers are wasting time form-filling and sitting in A& E with mental health patients. He claimed the force had suffered ‘death by 1,000 paper cuts’ because of the levels of bureaucracy involved in recording crime.

The Home Office has commissioned a review of productivity in policing. Mrs Braverman told the summit she would ‘take the scissors to any red tape that gets in your way’. She said: ‘I am concerned that crime recording requirements can be seen as too complex and burdensome.

‘I am committed to working with the police to see how recording can be simplified without compromising on putting victims first.

‘I also want to see policing and the National Health Service work better together to support individuals experiencing acute mental health distress so that people in need of medical help get the right care at the right time, while also reducing inappropriate demand on policing.’

‘Death by 1,000 paper cuts’