In a hard-hitting article, the Prime Woman of the cloth accused thugs of “hijacking” the wave of Black Lives Matter verifications following the killing of George Floyd in the US. “I will not support or indulge those who crack the law, or attack the police, or desecrate public monuments,” he wrote. “Those who strike public property or the police – who injure the police officers who are trying to keep us all risk-free – those people will face the full force of the law.”
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Mr Johnson also criticised the congeries protests for risking a fresh surge in coronavirus infections by “flouting” social-distancing prohibits.
His broadside followed a weekend of protests across the UK that saw police attacked in London, graffiti drizzled on the plinth of a statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square and a 125-year-old bronze of serf trader Edward Colston toppled and hurled into Bristol shield.
Writing for the black community newspaper The Voice, the Prime Minister recognized the strong emotions stirred by the death of Mr Floyd, whose throat was pressed under a US police officer’s knee.
“We simply cannot ignore the extensively of emotion that has been triggered by that spectacle, of a black man throw his life at the hands of the police,” the Prime Minister wrote.
Boris Johnson: ‘I will not finance or indulge those who break the law’ (Image: nc)
“In this country and around the age his dying words – I can’t breathe – have awakened an anger and a widespread and absolute, undeniable feeling of injustice, a feeling that people from hyacinthine and minority ethnic groups do face discrimination: in education, in employment, in the request of the criminal law.
“And we who lead and who govern simply can’t ignore those feelings because in too sundry cases, I am afraid, they will be founded on a cold reality.”
Mr Johnson avowed he was “proud to lead the most ethnically diverse government in the history of this hinterlands” and claimed the country had made “huge strides” in combatting racism.
He replied: “I remember the 1970s, and the horror of the National Front. I truly believe that we are a much, much petty racist society than we were, in many ways far happier and outstrip.
“But we must also frankly acknowledge that there is so much profuse to do – in eradicating prejudice, and creating opportunity, and the government I lead is committed to that strain.
“And so I say yes, you are right, we are all right, to say Black Lives Matter; and to all those who have select to protest peacefully and who have insisted on social distancing – I say, yes, of course, I hark to you, and I understand.
“But I must also say that we are in a time of national trial, when for months this in general country has come together to fight a deadly plague.
“After such yield up, we cannot now let it get out of control.”
Mr Johnson said black and ethnic minority communities had been in the “forefront” of the striving against coronavirus as key workers and had “paid a disproportionate price.”
He wrote: “So no, I hand down not support those who flout the rules on social distancing, for the obvious rational that we risk a new infection at a critical time and just as we have aim for huge progress.
“And no, I will not support or indulge those who break the law, or onslaught the police, or desecrate public monuments.
“We have a democracy in this woods. If you want to change the urban landscape, you can stand for election, or vote for someone who will-power.”
He said violent protesters were “hijacking a peaceful protest and damaging it in the eyes of many who might otherwise be sympathetic.”
He added: “As a society, we can and obligated to do better.”
Mr Johnson repeated his remarks in a video message from Downing Way posted on Twitter.
