Two-tier policing

Two-tier policing
A protestor holding a placard saying "two-tier Keir" during the 2024 United Kingdom riots
OriginOriginally used in relation to the 1981 Brixton riot, later co-opted by Far-right activists
ContextBritish policing
MeaningPerception that the police treat certain groups, political causes, ethnicities or demographics more harshly or more leniently than others

"Two-tier policing" is a term that refers to allegations that police treat white people more harshly than ethnic minorities, predominantly used by the right-wing and far-right in the United Kingdom since the early 2020s. The term gained prominence during the 2024 United Kingdom riots and following the police response to the murder of Henry Nowak.

Origins and definitions

According to The Lead, the "two-tier policing" allegation was originally used to describe "over-policing and institutional racism against specific communities" around the time of the 1981 Brixton riot.[1] Writing in the Byline Times, the journalist Nafeez Ahmed has also stated that the term was used around that time to describe police bias against black communities leading to over-policing.[2]

In June 2026, BBC News defined the term saying: "Two-tier policing is a term used to describe the idea that some groups of people, or some behaviour (for example protests and demonstrations) are dealt with more harshly, more robustly, than others by law enforcement".[3]

Writing for the London School of Economics's British Politics blog, media scholars Lilie Chouliaraki and Kathryn Claire Higgins in one article, and academic researcher of the far right, Aaron Winter, in another, described the term as an example of white grievance and reverse victimhood.[4][5]

According to The Lead, the far-right co-opted the term to suggest that "police treat certain groups – particularly minorities – more favourably than others", adding that it is sometimes used to refer to people on the right versus the left.[1]

Usage

The Guardian say that the two-tier policing claim first came to prominence among far-right activists, noting that Tommy Robinson used the phrase in 2012.[6] The journalist Lizzie Dearden has traced the emergence of the term "two-tier policing" by the far right to 2019, when it began to be mentioned in Telegram groups.[7] The term was later applied to the police handling of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring after also being taken up by anti-vaxxers during the COVID-19 pandemic.[7]

The Guardian say that claim entered the mainstream in 2023, when Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused the Metropolitan Police of "double standards" and favouring the "assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists" – and said there was a perception they were "playing favourites" by suppressing protestors on the right but not the left, giving the examples of "lockdown objectors" compared to Black Lives Matter activists.[6][8]

Conservatives also applied the concept to the police responses to the largely peaceful Gaza protests and far-right activists applied it to localised Harehills riot when compared with the response to widespread national disorder committed during the 2024 United Kingdom riots, arguing that white protesters were treated more harshly because of their race and political views.[9] Following the latter riots, American businessman Elon Musk nicknamed then Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer "two-tier Keir", with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage suggesting that the police had dealt with the riots more harshly than other recent protests.[10][11][12] The Lead identified this moment as when the claim gained mainstream attention.[1]

The issue also arose in a peaceful protest by Just Stop Oil climate protesters in July 2024, in which some were given five-year sentences while a far-right rioter who assaulted a police officer was given a three-year sentence. Dale Vince said this disparity refuted the "two-tier policing" claim and suggested that there was "two-tier sentencing" issue, calling for a review of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 to deal with this "completely disproportionate and inconsistent" system.[13]

After an incident at Manchester Airport in July 2024 in which a police officer was suspended from duty and four men were arrested, Nigel Farage accused Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service of two-tier policing for not announcing charges by October.[14]

Following the death of a 61-year-old far-right rioter in October 2024 at HM Prison Moorland, the Reform UK politician Richard Tice was among those who alleged the rioter was sentenced too harshly.[15]

In the summer of 2025, members of the Jewish community complained after the police refused to arrest a pro-Palestine protester who had dressed as a Holocaust concentration camp inmate but replaced the star of David with a Muslim star and crescent, in what LBC News called "the latest wave of 'two-tier' policing allegations against the Met".[16]

Politicians representing the Democratic Unionist Party have accused the Police Service of Northern Ireland of two-tier policing in unionist areas following the 2025 Northern Ireland riots[17] and the police response to counter-protestors at a pro-Palestine march in Scarva.[18] The PSNI have rejected these claims.[17][19]

The phrase "two-tier Keir" was also adapted as a jibe against Keir Starmer's premiership since 2024.[20]

Murder of Henry Nowak

In the aftermath of the murder of Henry Nowak, the debate intensified. In June 2026, leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch – disagreeing with the acting chief constable of West Midlands Police, who denied that there was two-tier policing in the West Midlands – argued that, though not necessarily intentional, it was something people were experiencing and "it is quite clear that something is not right".[21] Around the same time, Policing minister Sarah Jones condemned anti-racist guidance by the National Police Chiefs' Council that called for police to "respond to individuals and communities according to their specific needs, circumstances and experiences, with understanding that these will be racialised and with the aim of reducing harm", calling it "wrong". Jones was unable to deny that "two-tier policing" exists in Britain and the guidance is now being reviewed by police chiefs.[22] Nigel Farage called for "pure cold rage" in the wake of the murder, argued it was proof of two-tier policing and demanding an end to what he called "anti-white prejudice".[23] Based on government statistics, Marvin Rees said that "race and class are key determinants to people's experience of the criminal justice system" but that, contrary to claims of bias against white people, "black people will get worse outcomes than other ethnicities from the criminal justice system".[23]

Former Labour home secretary David Blunkett and Conservative policing minister Nick Herbert authored a report on police leadership for the College of Policing. Ahead of its publication, in a BBC interview, Blunkett said its findings suggested that across the police service there were weaknesses in leadership, morale and culture. Asked if he thought there was a problem with "two-tier policing", Blunkett said "I think there's a perception". He said "It's gone from the [1999] Macpherson report about outright racism in the force, particularly the reflections in the Met, all the way through to people saying 'oh, it's woke'", adding "We make it clear in the report that there's no room for culture wars or woke. It isn't the job of the police in our country to take sides of any sort. It's the job of the police to deliver".[24]

The Greater Manchester police chief constable, Stephen Watson, said that there was more work required to address the perception of two-tier policing that was held by some. He also said that he did not believe that there was such a thing in his police force. He added, "I think, to an extent, we have to acknowledge that the public perceive there to be two-tier policing" and added "And whether that be historically people from minority communities or in the aftermath of the tragic Henry Nowak case, I think people perceive it now from different quarters and across the board" and "We've uncritically adopted language that persuades people that perhaps we are not as impartial as we should be and so, in a sense, I see the perception".[3]

As a conspiracy theory

The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The i Paper described two-tier policing as a conspiracy theory in 2024, and it was also described as such in a 2025 research paper by criminologists at the University of Salford and Northumbria University.[12][25][26][27] Barrister Sam Fowles called claims of two-tier policing a "spurious conspiracy theory" and criticised mainstream media outlets for treating it as legitimate. He said sentences for 2024 rioters were less severe than those of left-wing protestors prosecuted for disruptive but peaceful acts.[28] Fowles later stated that in 2025 claims of bias against white people in the justice system similarly spread "generally uncritically, across the traditional media".[29]

Assessments

While the National Police Chiefs' Council anti-racism commitment states their goal is equality of policing outcomes and is not committed to racial equality,[30][31] figures show a longstanding bias against ethnic minorities, especially black people.[1] Existing research "shows that more needs to be done by the police to better protect immigrants and ethnic minorities in the UK".[32]

A House of Commons Library Insight article following the Summer 2024 riots said that it was "extremely difficult" to compare police responses to different protests or instances of disorder, given the vastly different scale, context and incidents involved, concluding that there is no reliable way to measure whether police respond to incidents differently due to political pressure.[33]

A YouGov poll of 2,070 people conducted in August 2024 found partisan differences in perceptions of two-tier policing. Reform UK voters were especially likely to say that the police were more strict against the far-right and young men and more lenient towards Muslims, black people, the far-left, and climate activists. Conservative voters tended in a similar direction in some areas, but less consistently. Labour and Liberal Democrat voters most often answered "no real difference" for most groups. For example, only 16% of Labour voters and 17% of Liberal Democrat voters said police were stricter with disorder caused by the far-left, compared with 45% and 46% respectively who said there was no real difference. The exception was disorder caused by people of Black ethnicity, where Labour and Liberal Democrat voters most often said police were stricter. In each of the four voter groups, respondents were more likely to say police were stricter, rather than more lenient, toward disorder caused by the far-right and young men.[34]

In January 2025, The Times reported that a leaked, unpublished Home Office internal review described two-tier policing as an extremist ideological belief.[35] The Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, said the two-tier policing claim is part of legitimate debate not an extremist position.[36]

An April 2025 Home Affairs Select Committee report on the police response to 2024 riots found there was "no evidence of 'two-tier policing' in officers' handling of the levels of violence and criminality during the period".[37][1] According to Netpol, Home Office data has also shown that the Public Order Act was used by police in London more than anywhere else in the country, and that of these 57.7% were used to restrict pro-Palestine demonstrators while only 11.5% were used in relation to far-right protests.[38] Similarly, in assessing claims of two-tier policing, Byline Times said "a quarter-century of official findings record racial bias in British policing running against black people – the reverse of the "two-tier" bias far-right rioters invoke".[2] Researchers from the Royal United Services Institute argued in 2024 that there was a "two-tier approach" to extremism that treated far-right violence less seriously than Islamist violence, with far-right violence often classified as "mere 'thuggery' or hooliganism" while similar acts motivated by Islamist extremism were quickly classified as terrorism.[39] A FOI request by Global Witness also found that the Metropolitan Police's own data revealed that environmental campaigners, with peaceful groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, were significantly more likely to be arrested and charged than agitators who engaged in far-right violence.[40]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Glover, Ella; Grunewald, Zoe (4 June 2026). "The Lead Untangles: Two-tier policing claims". The Lead. Archived from the original on 10 August 2026. Retrieved 30 July 2026.
  2. 1 2 Ahmed, Nafeez (9 June 2026). "How the Far-Right Is Using the Racist Myth of 'Two-Tier Policing' to Exploit Henry Nowak's Murder". Byline Times. Archived from the original on 24 July 2026. Retrieved 24 July 2026.
  3. 1 2 Jameson, Anna; Ferguson, Angela (22 June 2026). "Police chief addresses two-tier policing concerns". BBC News. Archived from the original on 14 July 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  4. ↑ Chouliaraki, Lilie; Higgins, Kathryn Claire (15 August 2024). "The truth about "two-tier policing"". LSE British Politics. London School of Economics. Archived from the original on 21 April 2026. Retrieved 16 April 2026. Like all the best conspiracy theories, the myth of a "two-tier" approach to policing public disorder is effective precisely because it contains a core vein of truth.
  5. ↑ Winter, Aaron (19 June 2026). "Reversing the racism – Henry Nowak, two-tier policing and far-right riots". LSE British Politics. London School of Economics. It is a clear co-option, reversal and re-presentation of claims of not just "hate" but systemic and institutional racism by racialised people. This claim is made despite the fact that racists and the far-right typically reject such accusations and all the evidence is that "two-tier policing" does not exist, but institutional racism does as the Runnymede Trust points out.
  6. 1 2 Siddique, Haroon; Goodier, Michael; Aguilar García, Carmen; Dodd, Vikram (5 June 2026). "How did the notion of 'two-tier policing' evolve, and does it really exist?". The Guardian.
  7. 1 2 Hamed, Assiah (7 August 2024). "UK riots: What are the claims about 'two tier policing'?". The New Arab. Archived from the original on 28 March 2026. Retrieved 16 April 2026.
  8. ↑ Boffey, Daniel (8 November 2023). "Suella Braverman accuses police of double standards on rallies". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  9. ↑ Bland, Archie; Dodd, Vikram (6 August 2024). "England riots: how has 'two-tier policing' myth become widespread?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 3 September 2024. Retrieved 18 July 2026.
  10. ↑ Elgot, Jessica (5 August 2024). "Priti Patel criticises Nigel Farage for comparing far-right riots to BLM protests". The Guardian.
  11. ↑ Lynch, David (5 August 2024). "'Two-tier policing' worries are a non-issue, Sir Keir Starmer insists". The Independent. Archived from the original on 6 August 2024. Retrieved 6 August 2024.
  12. 1 2 Witherow, Tom (7 August 2024). "Two-tier policing myth: the claims fact-checked". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 22 July 2025. Retrieved 10 August 2025.
  13. ↑ Savage, Michael (10 August 2024). "Labour donor calls for review as Southport rioter is jailed for less time than Just Stop Oil protester". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 August 2025. "I've seen the claim of two-tier policing [of the rioting]," Vince told the Observer. "It's a kind of Trump-style tactic that can inflame tensions. It's obviously bollocks. What I think we are seeing is two-tier sentencing.
  14. ↑ "Reform UK legal action threat over Manchester Airport incident". BBC. 7 October 2024.
  15. ↑ Mulligan, Byrne (21 October 2024). "How death of rioter who targeted asylum hotel reignited a far-right conspiracy". The i Paper. Archived from the original on 22 July 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  16. ↑ "Two-tier policing row erupts after pro-Palestine protester dresses as Holocaust victim". LBC News. 26 June 2025. Retrieved 10 August 2025.
  17. 1 2 Swan, Gabrielle (25 June 2025). "PSNI's Deputy Chief dismisses DUP suggestion of two-tier policing following recent rioting across NI". Belfast Telegraph. Archived from the original on 26 June 2025. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  18. ↑ Dickson, Claire (6 June 2026). "DUP demands meeting with PSNI over Scarva counter-protest amid accusations of 'heavy-handedness'". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  19. ↑ Ainsworth, Paul (8 June 2026). "PSNI defend Scarva operation as DUP MLA accuses officers of being 'determined to start a riot'". The Irish News. Archived from the original on 9 June 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  20. ↑ "Laura Kuenssberg: Nowak murder has lit a match under UK politics". BBC News. 6 June 2026. Archived from the original on 22 July 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  21. ↑ Griffiths, Hannah; Blackman, Alec (5 June 2026). "Two-tier policing needs to be taken seriously, Badenoch says". BBC News. Archived from the original on 22 July 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  22. ↑ Dathan, Matt; Humphries, Will; Swinford, Steven; Geraldine, Scot (3 June 2026). "Henry Nowak case: police racism guidance 'wrong', says minister". The Times. Archived from the original on 23 July 2026. Retrieved 23 July 2026.
  23. 1 2 Boothe, Marcus; Philemon, Kevin (28 June 2026). "'It's not a secret - it's maths': The truth behind 'two-tier policing'". BBC News. Archived from the original on 19 July 2026. Retrieved 18 July 2026.
  24. ↑ Kuenssberg, Laura; Rawnsley, Jessica (4 July 2026). "Police leadership needs 'ethical reset', Lord Blunkett tells BBC". BBC News. Archived from the original on 23 July 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
  25. ↑ Elgot, Jessica; Mason, Rowena (6 August 2024). "Elon Musk calls PM 'two-tier Keir' over police response to UK riots". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 3 September 2024. Retrieved 10 August 2025.
  26. ↑ O'Byrne Mulligan, Euan (21 October 2024). "How death of rioter who targeted asylum hotel reignited a far-right conspiracy". The i Paper. Retrieved 6 August 2026.
  27. ↑ Robinson, Paul; Ralph, Liam; Aitken, Adam (19 May 2025). "Police use of X (Twitter) during the 2024 UK riots". Police Practice and Research. 0: 1–20. doi:10.1080/15614263.2025.2510376. ISSN 1561-4263.
  28. ↑ Fowles, Sam (16 August 2024). "The mainstream has enabled far-right terror". Prospect Magazine. Archived from the original on 24 July 2026. Retrieved 24 July 2026.
  29. ↑ Fowles, Sam (2025). "Extremism is the Point: How Our Society and Politics Foster Dark Ideas". In Brown, Chris; Handscomb, Graham (eds.). Demagogues, Populism and Misinformation: A Guide to Combating Dark Ideas. Emerald Publishing Limited. p. 143. ISBN 9781805921714.
  30. ↑ "Police Anti-Racism Commitment". National Police Chiefs' Council. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
  31. ↑ "Police anti-racism commitment 'gives the wrong impression', minister says". BBC News. 3 June 2026. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
  32. ↑ Ralph, Liam; Robinson, Paul; Aitken, Adam (2025). "Policing, social media, and riots: user responses to the police during the 2024 UK summer protests and riots". Policing and Society. 36 (3): 281. doi:10.1080/10439463.2025.2560902.
  33. ↑ Downs, William (9 September 2024). "Policing response to the 2024 summer riots". House of Commons Library. Retrieved 10 June 2026.
  34. ↑ Smith, Matthew (13 August 2024). "Is there two-tier policing in the UK?". YouGov. Archived from the original on 13 August 2024. Retrieved 13 August 2024.
  35. ↑ Dathan, Matt (28 January 2025). "Two-tier policing claim is extremism, Home Office review suggested". The Times. Archived from the original on 20 July 2026. Retrieved 20 July 2026.
  36. ↑ Salisbury, Josh (28 January 2025). "Two-tier policing claim is 'right-wing extremism', Home Office review suggests". The Standard. Archived from the original on 28 April 2026. Retrieved 16 April 2026.
  37. ↑ Home Affairs Select Committee (14 April 2025). Police response to the 2024 summer disorder (Second Report of Session 2024–25). House of Commons. Retrieved 10 June 2026.
  38. ↑ "What does partial Metropolitan Police data say about protest restrictions in London?". Netpol. 26 May 2026. Archived from the original on 8 June 2026. Retrieved 8 June 2026.
  39. ↑ Syal, Rajeev (11 August 2024). "'Two-tier': UK treats far-right attacks less harshly than Islamist violence, says thinktank". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 August 2025.
  40. ↑ Childs, Simon (19 November 2025). "Revealed: the Real 'Two-Tier Policing'". Novara Media. Archived from the original on 29 April 2026. Retrieved 16 April 2026.

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