What is 'two-tier policing' and why are the right-wing insisting it's a problem?

In brief:

• The concept of 'two-tier policing' has emerged in UK discourse, suggesting that police treat different protest groups unequally.
• Prominent figures such as Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage have accused the police of two-tier policing, while Sir Keir Starmer has said it's a "non issue".
• On the latest The News Agents podcast, Jon and Lewis argue that while different police responses to various situations exist, UK police have shown remarkable restraint compared to other countries, particularly given the severity of recent events like the arson attack on a hotel in Rotherham.

As he left today’s emergency Cobra meeting, Sir Mark Rowley, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was asked by a journalist; “Are you going to end two-tier policing, sir?”

In response, he grabbed the journalist's microphone and dropped it to the ground.

It was “not a great look,” Jon Sopell pointed out on today’s episode of The News Agents.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police told Sky News Rowley was “in a hurry”.

It’s been only one week since three innocent young girls were murdered, and others injured, in a stabbing attack in Southport.

Since then there has been a week of riots, protests and thuggery taking part in towns and cities across the UK. Over the weekend, two hotels housing asylum seekers set on fire in Rotherham and Tamworth.

As events have unraveled, two-tier policing has become a part of the discourse.

What is two tier policing?

“This is another one of these threads that has emerged on the right and on the online right repeatedly” Lewis says.

The phrase is used to describe the idea that police treat some groups who protest or riot differently, often more harshly, from other groups.

Who is accusing the police of two-tier policing?

Tommy Robinson was quick to respond to the video of Rowley knocking the microphone out of a journalist's hand, posting on X; “They know the country is raging. They know it's their fault because of their two-tier policing.”

Robinson is not the only one who has accused police of two-tier policing since the riots this week.

In a statement on Twitter/X in which he called for parliament to be recalled from summer recess, Nigel Farage posted; “Ever since the soft policing of the Black Lives Matter protests, the impression of two-tier policing has become widespread. The Prime Minister’s faltering attempts to address the current crisis have only added to that sense of injustice”.

Speaking after an emergency Cobra meeting Sir Keir Starmer responded: “There is no two-tier policing.

“There is policing without fear or favour – exactly as it should be, exactly what I would expect and require.

“So that is a non-issue.”

What do The News Agents think?
“There's two tier policing in the sense that different sorts of protests, if different sorts of crimes are committed, have different sorts of responses from the police. That is kind of how justice and the law works,” Lewis points out.

Jon has been “really struck by the incredible restraint that the police have shown”, when compared to similar incidents in other parts of the world.

Reflecting on the riots after unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, Jon remembers; “You couldn't walk along the streets for the tear gas.”

“I have been in Paris where the water cannon is out, and when there is no quarter being spared by the French police by the CRS to push back the protesters. I've seen it in Greece and around the world where big protests are taking place.”

“I think the police are doing an unenviable job,” Jon adds. “And they are doing it with unbelievable restraint and sensitivity, because they want to keep the peace, not start a fight.”

Lewis points out that we need to remember the extent of the attack on the hotel in Rotherham this weekend. The building was set alight, an emergency exit was blocked, “dozens of people could have died.”

“When we're talking about two tier policing, or accusations of two tier policing, are the police gonna come down on those people, is the justice system going to come down on those people like a ton of bricks?

"Yeah, they will. And so they bloody should”.

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.