Boris Johnson has contributed to racism in football – but could help to fix it

North-south, Leave-Remain and rich-poor aren’t the only divides Johnson needs to heal

During Christmas week, my two identities intersected. At work, I’m a political junkie, a Westminster journalist since 1982. Outside work, I’m addicted to football, Tottenham Hotspur in particular.

On Sunday, I was in the crowd when some of my fellow Spurs fans allegedly directed monkey chants at Chelsea player Antonio Rudiger. I was also at the Emirates last year when a Spurs fan a few rows away threw a banana skin onto the pitch after Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored. I was ashamed on both occasions, as I think 99 per cent of football fans would be. Sadly, the 1 per cent do a lot of harm.

Such behaviour from Spurs fans seems surprising, given that they have more often been the victims of racism than its perpetrators. The club’s traditional support among Jewish people led Spurs fans to embrace the nickname “Yids” in the 1970s in order to deflect antisemitic abuse. I’ve heard rival fans sing songs like “Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz” and make hissing sounds to recall the gas chambers.

Yet sadly, this abuse also fits a trend. Abuse of black players was prevalent in the 1980s; I recall the National Front leafleting outside grounds. For a while it appeared the problem had died out, but it has returned with a vengeance in the past year or so – sometimes on the pitch, though more often, off it. CCTV has deprived fans of the anonymity of the crowd, meaning ethnic minority players are often targeted by faceless social media trolls.

Swapping my football hat for my politics one, I can’t help thinking that our politicians bear some responsibility for this new climate of intolerance, of which racism in football is just one symptom.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Bishop of Dover and former chaplain to the House of Commons, told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday: “The discourse that we’ve had over the last three years has been ... damaging not only to parliamentarians [but also] the wider community and society as a whole. I have always believed that the kind of discourse that we had contributed to the death of Jo Cox.” Hate crimes have spiked since the 2016 referendum.

Some in the football world have made the link between the revival of racism in football and in politics. Gary Neville, the former England international, was wrongly interrupted by Sky Sports when he said: “We have just had an election in this country where both main parties and the leaders of both main parties are accused constantly over the last month of fuelling racism and accepting racism within their parties.” Meanwhile, Iffy Onuora, equalities coach at the Professional Footballers’ Association, told the BBC: “There is upheaval following the referendum and the election and that’s caused this fracture ... That emboldens people. It’s been legitimised by some of the language from the politicians.”

With another general election unlikely for four or five years and the question of EU membership seemingly settled, politicians should lower the temperature. I fear they won’t. Despite Johnson’s describing veiled Muslim women as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”, his allies insist he is a liberal. They point to his backing for an amnesty for illegal migrants, though – surprise, surprise – that amnesty was absent from the Tory manifesto.

My worry is that Johnson might be tempted to take a harsh line on immigration to try to lock in the Tories’ new working-class voters, many of whom are left-of-centre on the economy but lean rightwards on social issues.

It would be in the Tories’ interest to adopt a more tolerant approach. Labour won 64 per cent of the ethnic minority vote at the election, the Tories just 20 per cent, Ipsos Mori found. As Sunder Katwala, director of the think tank British Future, points out: “Not being white remains the number one demographic predictor of not voting Conservative”.

If Johnson is the One Nation Conservative he says he is, he must heal more than the divide between rich and poor, north and south, Leavers and Remainers. He should also heal the racial divides that are besetting our country, and its favourite sport.