Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall denied institutional racism in Met Police
The Tory London mayoral candidate denied institutional racism exists in the Metropolitan Police and endorsed a comment saying those with concerns about stop and search have “something to hide”.
Susan Hall responded to a tweet by veteran MP Diane Abbott saying “there is not institutional racism in the Met” and accused her of “trying to cause division”. She made the tweet in summer of 2020 as Black Lives Matter protests swept across the world in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in America.
Ms Hall also liked a tweet that was made just days ago that said the only people with concerns about stop and search are those with “something to hide”. The tweet was in response to a post where she praised police for seizing a knife.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the Macpherson Report, which declared the Met “institutionally racist” after its failure to properly investigate the racist murder of London teenager Stephen Lawrence. Last year Baroness Casey’s review into the Met, which was commissioned after the murder of Sarah Everard by a Met police officer, found the London force continues to be “institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic”.
The damning report also said the force’s use of stop and search, which disproportionately impacts Black people, needed "a fundamental reset". Baroness Casey highlighted research that shows "larger numbers of Black people felt traumatised and humiliated by the experience of stop and search than other ethnic groups".
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Ms Hall was last year accused of endorsing tweets relating to Enoch Powell, Islamophobic tropes about London Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan and the myth that the 2020 US election was stolen from Donald Trump. She will go up against Mr Khan at the 2024 London mayoral election on May 2.
Ms Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party last year after writing a letter which suggested Jewish, Irish, and Traveller people are not subject to racism "all their lives".
Labour MP Dawn Butler said: "This latest tweet unearthed from the Tory candidate Susan Hall shows she's utterly unfit to be Mayor. Not only is she outright denying the existence of institutional racism in the Met - a fact that has since been proven by Baroness Casey's review - but she called out a Black woman for raising the issue, accusing her of trying to cause division.
“After claiming the Black community has a 'problem with crime', calling the much-loved Notting Hill carnival 'dangerous' and 'appalling', and endorsing the views of notorious racist Enoch Powell, this is yet more proof that London deserves someone who understands and appreciates our rich and wonderful diversity. That person isn't Susan Hall."
A spokesman for Susan Hall: "Susan always has and always will condemn racism in the Met, which Sadiq Khan has failed to tackle in his eight years in charge of the police.
"It is disappointing that Sadiq Khan and his allies voted against Susan's £200million crime plan at the London Assembly this week, which would have made our streets safer and equipped police with knife detection wands to make stop and search less invasive and more effective."
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