‘Nothing changed since Stephen Lawrence’s murder’: Backbench Tory MP calls for Met to be ‘abolished’
The Met Police should be “abolished” after failing to change since the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence, a Conservative MP has suggested in the wake of a blistering report.
Baroness Louise Casey branded the Met “institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic” and warned cops like killer Wayne Couzens and rapist David Carrick may still be in uniform.
Hendon MP Matthew Offord said the report showed “nothing has changed” since the 1999 Macpherson inquiry in the wake of Lawrence’s murder.
He asked home secretary Suella Bravernman if she agreed it would “be more effective to abolish the Met, transfer the specialist operations to the remit of the Home Office and establish a police service for London to focus solely on the maintenance of law and order?”
Braverman refused to support his calls and said it was right to support commissioner Sir Mark Rowley in his plans to transform the force.
It came after another Conservative MP warned the break up of the force could prove “almost an inevitability”.
Tory anger at the Met
Caroline Nokes, chairman of the women and equalities committee, said: “When people start talking about the possible break up of the Met… I wonder if that’s almost an inevitability now.”
She told broadcaster TalkTV: “It has proven itself a failing organisation that can’t get to grips with its problem, that hasn’t really even tried to get to grips… over many, many years.”
Labour’s Yvette Cooper said she was concerned by Braverman’s “dangerously complacent” response, calling it a “continuation of the hands-off Home Office Baroness Casey criticises”.
Braverman said: “I ask Londoners to judge Sir Mark and the mayor of London not on their words but on their actions to stamp out racist, misogynistic and homophobic behaviour.”
Sir Keir Starmer said his Labour government would “raise confidence in every police force to its highest level”, including by creating specialist rape units in all forces within his first term.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said the review marked “one of the darkest days” in the Met’s history.
While Lawrence’s mother, Baroness Doreen, said the Met Police was “rotten to the core” with “institutionalised discrimination” and “needs changing from top to bottom”.
Sir Mark said he accepted Casey’s diagnosis, adding: “We have racists, misogynists and homophobes in the organisation… systemic failings, management failings and cultural failings.”