Met Police boss to ban officers from backing 'woke' causes while on duty

Britain's most senior policeman Sir Mark Rowley said it is "perfectly proper" for the force to wear remembrance poppies, Help for Heroes wristbands and the police memorial badge.

He added that despite the fact some officers may "personally support" woke causes, officers should be impartial.

The police commissioner said the force "explicitly supporting" any of the causes is "quite tricky" and there are "not a lot" of causes the force should support.

"The danger is that once you say, 'we are going to align ourselves to a cause because 90 per cent of the population support it', what about the 10 per cent?", he told The Telegraph.

He also argued that it is "not woke" to engage with different communities to "understand what worries them".

The police chief said many groups have "very sensible majority membership" but there are some with extremist views.

"The challenge in the modern world of activists and protest groups – and so much of it is online – is they do drift in different directions, some groups you can think of do have a very sensible majority membership and then a few people with extreme views and you can’t legislate that from outside it," he told The Telegraph.

"If people don’t believe we operate without fear or favour that is pretty fatal to us more than pretty much anybody else and that is why I think we have to be tougher on that."

It follows a move by the Metropolitan police to ban its officers from wearing the patches while covering Gay Pride events in London.

The force said the badges were "contentious" as similar Stars-and-Stripes emblems in the US had been hijacked by far-right and transphobic groups.

Rowley has now set out to tackle anti-social behaviour and made it one of the foundations for his New Met plan.

When asked if the public should report every incident of anti-social behaviour to the police and expect a response, Rowley replied "absolutely".

He added: "If there is a pattern of things that are making you feel unsafe, it may not be a particular incident, but you are just worried because you are concerned there is something going on outside the local shops, is it drug using or drug dealing or whatever, speak to your ward officer."