Met oficers seen wearing divisive ‘thin blue line’ symbol at sensitive protests despite orders to remove them

Metropolitan police officers are openly defying orders not to wear badges appropriated by the far right and linked to white supremacy.

In July, the force’s chief, Mark Rowley, banned officers from wearing the “thin blue line” badge saying that in the US an equivalent symbol had been used by “hard-right groups”.

However, images have emerged of Met officers wearing the symbol late last month as they policed a stand-off between LGBTQ+ rights supporters and a rightwing group over a drag act’s performance at the Honor Oak pub in Lewisham, south London.

  • snooggums
    19•9 months ago

    The thin blue line has always been a symbol of hard right fascists. It was never anything else.

    • kux
      27•9 months ago

      In the USA maybe. In the UK it was a 90s sitcom

      • snooggums
        3•9 months ago

        The core concept of the thin blue line keeping society from chaos is fascist even if they made it a sitcom.

        • @Superfool@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1•9 months ago

          Yes. The concept of a thin blue line is not a good way to put it.

          While I believe the UK charity was originally associated with mental health of Police officers, it would probably be a good idea to distance itself from the far right American police symbol.

          • @Aux@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3•9 months ago

            Or maybe we should stop playing American tunes and make up our own meanings for symbols.

            • @talEnglish
              1•9 months ago

              Ironically, the term was apparently derived from a British one.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line

              The phrase originated as an allusion to the British infantry regiment The Thin Red Line during the Crimean War in 1854, wherein the regiment of Scottish Highlanders—wearing red uniforms—famously held off a Russian cavalry charge.