Vegan and pagan police groups told to focus on fighting crime
VEGAN and pagan police groups are among more than 200 “staff networks” criticised for “distracting” officers from fighting crime in a report backed by Priti Patel.
The former home secretary said some of the “staff networks” had blurred the lines between politics and policing as they campaigned on issues from veganism and climate change to Islamophobia and trans rights.
The report by the Policy Exchange think tank, which is close to the Gov- ernment, found the staff networks had “strayed well beyond the acceptable bounds of political impartiality required of those in policing”.
They included groups that had criticised the police’s use of the term “Islamist” for Muslim extremists, linked up with an organisation that has called for the abolition of the counter-terrorism Prevent programme, and attacked gender-critical writers such as JK Rowling.
In a foreword, Ms Patel said it was “deeply concerning” that at a time when police chiefs complained of “strained resources”, many staff networks were engaging in “an unhealthy internal competition for attention and resources rather than pursuing a relentless focus on serving the public”.
“Some of policing’s staff networks have blurred the lines between politics and policing. It is critical to our democratic settlement that police officers and staff stick to operational policing while politics is left to democratically elected politicians,” she said.
The report found staff networks had grown by more than 83 per cent since 2010 including the Vegan Network at Cleveland Police, West Yorkshire Police’s Green Network set up “primarily to lobby” on policy and the National Police Pagan Association. The report cited the National LGBT+ Network for urging officers to be permitted to march at Pride, despite its political nature.
Policy Exchange set out seven recommendations to standardise governance of the groups, place an onus on them to focus on “improving the effectiveness of policing”, and limit the amount of police duty time devoted to them.
The National Association of Muslim Police was contacted for comment. A National LGBT+ Police Network spokesman said: “We have conducted no political campaigns.”