It was not the Metropolitan Police’s finest hour: stopping two black Britons in a dark coloured BMW on the false pretext that the car was registered in North Yorkshire, on a Sunday in north London. It was not quite in the Constable Savage school of lameness, but was, as the late John Arlott was wont to say, very adjacent. What made the incident worse for the cops was that the car’s passenger was Labour MP Dawn Butler.
Dawn Butler MP
And she, like too many black Britons, has been there before. So she recorded the traffic stop and in the fullness of time,
said what she thought. Many stood in solidarity with her; the Met then ‘fessed up and said sorry. But that could never be the end of it.
Crawling out from the woodwork they all came, led by the likes of former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney, who claimed “
Dawn Butler wasn’t even driving the car. A white man was. Dawn Butler uses any excuse possible to inflame racism. Why is this nonsense indulged by the media?” Victims of racism are inflaming racism! Ignorance is strength!
Rod Bishop, “
Patriotic Englishman, Tory” agreed: “
So Dawn Butler wasn’t stopped by the Met. She was in a car stopped whilst being driven by a white male. Maybe the white male should protest about racial profiling?” Then came the creative brigade, led by moaning Tory Tweeter Ben, who told his followers “
Dawn Butler police stop video”. Except what he posted missed several minutes of footage. I’m sure it was just an oversight.
This in turn allowed easily led Tory MP Michael Fabricant, instead of bothering to do a few minutes’ research, to trot out “
So who are your sympathies with? Dawn Butler MP or the police?” Following that came the attention seeking fringe, typified by Mahyar Tousi threatening “
I advise Dawn Butler not to watch my YouTube channel tomorrow because I’m going all out to expose her and I don’t think she’ll like that”. What a creep.
But then, he was best mates with Mark Clarke and André Walker. Meanwhile, reality intervened, as Peter Walker from the
Guardian reminded everyone “
It’s indicative of modern Britain that conspiracy theories are already cropping up about the Dawn Butler police stop, including that she’s lying about her friend driving, & him being black. Don’t people realise police have body cameras & could easily debunk any lies? They’ve not”.
Also, Chief Superintendent Roy Smith of the Met told “
I've just spoken with [Dawn Butler] by phone. She has given me a very balanced account of the incident. She was positive about one officer & gave feedback on others & the stop. We are listening to those concerns & Dawn is quite entitled to raise them”. Then it got worse for the bigots.
Self-promoting TalkRADIO host Julia Hartley Dooda was also taking a measured view. “
I’ve been in contact with someone who has seen the full [Dawn Butler] video. It is 8 mins long and has not been ‘flipped’ - it’s the camera on her phone which has done that as she filmed herself. The driver, who appears pale skinned, is a black (mixed race?) man … The interaction with the WPC who was criticised by [Dawn Butler] is in the extended 8 minute video. I don’t know why [Sky News] chose not to use that footage”.
It did happen, Dawn Butler was not lying, the Met has apologised, but once again, the right wing exposes itself as a sewer of racist defensiveness.
I’ll just leave that one there.
Enjoy your visit to
Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet6
Perhaps you've viewed some of the discourse (ha!) on the Twitter, where many a police and former police share much vocabulary about this - "big fat dirty stinking lie". Pretty obvious what it is they all agree to be "big fat dirty stinking".
ReplyDeleteHere we go again.
ReplyDeleteThis deluded, declining nation is in serious trouble.
And we let it happen. We let in Bozo The Clown, the Starmer Quiff and all the other assorted thieves, spivs and conmen/women.
Institutional racism is just one by-product when apathy allows liars and robbers in control.
Britain has almost suicided its soul.
I can't believe that I've just read that Julia Dunning-Kruger is defending her. I need to lie down. The heat must be getting to me.
ReplyDeleteThe car was not stopped over because of who was driving it or the manner by which the car was driven.
ReplyDeleteIf the car was pulled over because the vehicle was registered in Yorkshire, do police in the north of England stop cars that are licenced in the south e.g. London cars around Barnard Castle?
Under the category "They just don't get it" I come across gems like:
ReplyDeleteOh my word. Boris Johnson has had more to say in support of Dawn Butler than Sir Keir Starmer, her party leader.
Granted, Johnson didn’t pay tribute to Dawn, but he could’ve said just one word and it would still be more than what Starmer has had to say.
Disgusting.
Anything for a bit of self-publicity, y'know.
@DawnButlerBrent is well able to speak for herself. And has done. Magnificently.
Why should @Keir_Starmer intervene and take attention from her? Had he done so, which of them would headline?
@ 12:52.
ReplyDeleteStarmer is "leader" of the Labour Party. Dawn, like Diane Abbot and others, is a black Labour MP subject to virulent racist attacks.
All The Quiff has done is belatedly "reach out" to "offer support". This, from a fellow quick to join in rigged accusations of antisemitism while ignoring the most egregious internal attack on British democracy.
It isn't a matter of "headlines". It's a matter of common decency and moral leadership - which Starmer conspicuously lacks. The man's a tenth rate right wing fraud. Not worth the proverbial carrot.
I see no racism here from the Met. I think people who make up claims of racism should be investigated themselves.
ReplyDeleteFar right led the conspiracy theories. How so far right? Why not just automatic knee-jerk from far left too?
ReplyDeleteAny chance the driver could actually have been white? He certainly looks white from the one photo available.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it a left/right thing.
It could have been an unfair stop which had elements of institutional racism.
But it equally might not have been..
I would like to see a fuller picture of the driver. That just makes me interested in the truth.
Politicians have been known to stretch the truth , so ( genuinely sorry) but I can't take her at her word.
@15:49
ReplyDeleteAnd I wonder which politicians you do take at their word. Not.
You might be genuinely concerned. Equally, you might be a racist trying to muddy the waters.
Just interested in the truth.
A relative of Jeremy Meneses-Charlaca, the 17 year old killed by machete attack on Oxford Street, as said that his death could have been avoided if there were more stop and searches.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the world of common sense.
Now try telling Dawn Butler that!
Whose afternoon was more spoilt?
@18:19
ReplyDeleteYawn. I plead the fourth amendment.
You bow to authoritarianism, I fight it. Group think can go and do one.