Why do the Tories have a problem with taking a knee?

Instead of the nation understanding the nature of racial injustice, and trying to drive it out, the Tory approach is simply to redefine it and ignore it, writes Sean O’Grady

Protesters kneel and raise their fists in the air as police officers line up outside the Houses of Parliament during a protest last summer (Getty Images)

“I don’t support protest...” Was it that a simple gaffe of the type we’ve grown to expect from Priti Patel, or more of a Freudian slip?

In truth, it wasn’t all that revealing. Ms Patel may not personally have much in common with Donald Trump, but she does possess an almost Trumpian talent to spot incipient cultural conflict and ignite it for political gain. Or, in this case, reignite it, as she seized the opportunity presented by a radio interview to drip contempt on the Black Lives Matter movement and the custom of “taking a knee”. She may not be able to pronounce long numbers, but her populist instincts are preternaturally sharp.

Both BLM and taking a knee have been twisted and redefined – you might say gaslit – to suit a particular agenda. BLM is supposedly now some kind of highly disciplined Bolshevik-style political cadre dedicated to the overthrow of “our history”, whatever that means, while taking a knee is presented as some sort of grotesque act of racial subjugation. It is quite the opposite, and the Black Lives Matter movement, which has spawned some organised groups, is an inchoate collection of honourable people making a simple but powerful gesture against racism. No conservative or patriot need fear or despise it, and there would be no objection to the likes of Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage joining in.

She hardly needed to, but Ms Patel confirmed that she isn’t going to be taking the knee for anyone.

She follows in a long list of top Tories who have said they won’t do so, as if there was any expectation of them springing a bit of a surprise at the next party conference. At least Ms Patel didn’t follow the display of woeful ignorance by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab. Long after he should have googled what had by then become a global symbol of racial justice, Mr Raab told Talk Radio: “I’ve got to say on this taking the knee thing – which I don’t know, maybe it’s got a broader history – but it seems to have been taken from the Game of Thrones.” Cringeworthy as that was he added that “I take the knee for two people: the Queen and the missus when I asked her to marry me.”

It seems to have been lost, deliberately or not, that kneeling in this fashion came over from America, when sports players would make a silent dignified protest against police brutality and racism. Rather than standing to attention, hand on heart during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner at the start of football games, among other events, the players would sit or kneel, and kneeling as an act of solidarity goes right back to the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King a half century ago. The outrage over the death of George Floyd and President Trump’s angry reactions made it an international phenomenon and thus another front line in what are called culture wars, sometimes with a racial aspect to them. Taking a knee divides football fans as much as it does political activists.

By contrast to the Conservatives, Labour and other progressive politicians are eager to take a knee, as Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner were last year, albeit purely as a photo op rather than at an event or protest. It plays well with Labour supporters, but badly with some of those they would like to persuade to vote for them next time round. Instead of the nation understanding the nature of racial injustice, and trying to drive it out, as perhaps was happening in recent decades, the new Tory approach is simply to redefine it and ignore it. This is best exemplified in Liz Truss’s recent speech ending the shaky cross-party consensus on the issue of race in society, which at least acknowledged its existence (Ms Truss is the cabinet minister responsible for equality, with a special gift for bending with the wind).

By the same token, Ms Patel readily understands that many of her party’s new Brexit-driven supporters in archetypal working-class northern and Midland seats have no time for “wokery”, at least as far as it has been distorted and derided. They, and especially those who are members of her party, prefer to see the rise and rise of Priti Patel as proof that there is little problem with race either in the country or the Conservatives, provided you work hard and get on – just as she claims. She knows her Tory fan base is her best protection against her losing her job in the next reshuffle – her approval rating among the grassroots far outstrips Johnson’s. Sometimes in politics it’s hard to tell who’s using who.