The Home Secretary has refused to support the taking of the knee.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has said that she does not support the taking of the knee before England matches, calling the taking of the knee “gesture politics.”
Her comments came after booing was heard before a number of England games while the knee was being taken. Before England’s first match of Euro 2020, boos were heard among the 22,500 in attendance, while others cheered the players.
Ms Patel, speaking on new news channel GB News, said: “I just don’t support people participating in that type of gesture politics to a certain extent.
“It’s all well to support a cause and, you know, make your voices heard, but actually, quite frankly, and we saw last year in particular with some of the protests that took place, I speak now very much from what I saw and the impact on policing. It was devastating.”
The Black Lives Matter protests last year saw protestors convincing police officers to take the knee, which led to condemnation of the police officers. The protests were also marred by violence in some instances.
England defender Tyrone Mings responded to the Home Secretary’s criticism saying:
“To the Home Secretary, I don’t really have a direct message.
“I mean we spoke, actually she invited me on to a Zoom call once, where she seemed so interested and engrossed in the players’ point of view and what we could do more to tackle these sorts of issues.
“But at the same time, everybody’s entitled to their own opinion and she is one of many, many people that oppose us taking the knee or refuse to defend it.
“We think about what we can do to help and there will be players that can be influential and can stand up for what we believe in.
“We spoke about trying to educate or trying to inform the minority who refuse to acknowledge why we’re taking the knee and want to do it.
“At the same time, at Wembley there was a hugely positive reaction to us taking the knee as well and I don’t think that should be overshadowed by the minority that refuse to accept what the reasons are, or don’t agree with them.”
