Piccaninnies No More

The next monarch but one is something to take in its stride, but can Black Lives Matter survive endorsement by a Conservative Prime Minister? In any case, that is what it has received today.

Taking the knee goes all the way back to white opponents of the slave trade, who knelt in prayer on both sides of the Atlantic. It has an even longer history over here than it has over there. And it is hardly an expression of police abolitionism on the part of Jude Bellingham, whose white father is a serving Police Officer.

In Britain, such opposition as there is to the wider Black Lives Matter phenomenon has been imported from a country in which it is still only 53 years since George Wallace won nearly 10 million votes for President, well over one in eight, and carried five states. Those cheering the booing in Budapest last night are cheering the overt heirs of the Arrow Cross. Two World Wars and one World Cup, indeed.

That said, the New Cross fire to create the excuse for Operation Swamp was set long after 1968, the Stephen Lawrence scandal was long after that, and Mark Duggan, who for all his faults did not deserve to be killed "to even the score" for Keith Blakelock, was a mere 10 years ago.

The prosecution of Apsana Begum by Keir Starmer's goons was this year, that of Claudia Webbe is ongoing, and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is making its way through Parliament right now. Highly active in the opposition to that Bill is the admittedly problematic Black Lives Matter as an organisation.

When, as over the Poll Tax and then again over the wars of the last 20 years, the only functioning Opposition is on the streets, then why is the Official Opposition still being funded through Short Money and other channels? Those revenue streams would more usefully be diverted to, among others, Black Lives Matter, which is also vastly more popular than the Official Opposition. Not only that, but it has now been endorsed by Boris Johnson.