Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has accused Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice of ‘trying to whip up an issue’ by claiming migrants are leering outside primary schools
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has accused Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice of “trying to whip up an issue” by claiming migrants are leering and jeering outside primary schools.
She said she hasn’t seen any evidence of people hanging around outside schools to back up Mr Tice’s comments. And she said he appeared to be talking about “vigilante groups” by encouraging privately organised groups of men to patrol the streets to keep women safe.
Asked about Mr Tice’s comments that migrants were “leering” outside schools, Dame Diana told Times Radio: “I haven’t personally seen evidence of people hanging around outside primary schools other than obviously parents and carers. And I often go and talk to people in my constituency outside school gates. I haven’t seen that myself.” It comes after a Reform UK police chief’s ‘dark heart of wokeness’ claim comes under fire.
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Asked if Mr Tice’s comments were wrong, she said: “I think unfortunately Mr Tice might well be trying to whip up an issue there. I absolutely accept that there’s genuine concern about safety in our communities and it’s really important that we recognise that as a genuine concern.
“But what I would say is this country on the whole is a very law abiding country and we have a police force who have the tools and the officers to make sure that if there is criminal behaviour happening that that is addressed. So if Richard Tice thinks that there are problems in his own constituency, I assume that’s what he’s talking about, he should be raising that with the authorities and getting the police to look at what’s happening.”
Asked about Mr Tice’s comments calling for groups of men protecting women, Dame Diana said: “That sounds a bit like a vigilante group. What I want to make sure is that we’ve got good policing in this country, good neighbourhood policing, and that’s why we’re investing money into getting 13,000 additional police officers into all of our communities to provide that public reassurance that there is a police presence out in the high street, in the town centre, in the villages.
“Of course, I also think that we’re all members of society and we all have a responsibility to make sure that we call out when things are not right and behaviour is not acceptable.”
Yesterday, Mr Tice told Times Radio there was “plenty of evidence” asylum seekers were hanging outside of schools. “We are seeing an increase in the numbers of sexual assaults, leering and jeering, as I said earlier, coincidentally around asylum seeker hotels,” he said.
“And when I campaign up and down the country, and I hear this from concerned residents close to these hotels, time and time again. And so I think the evidence is there on the ground. People’s concern around primary schools… as mum takes their youngsters to school. So there’s plenty of evidence there. Some of these illegal migrants hanging around nearby the gates of primary schools and sort of looking, leering, sometimes catcalling at the mums and the daughters going to primary school.”
Elsewhere he said men protecting women is “the gentlemanly thing to do”. Asked if he’d encourage more groups of people to set up these groups themselves in their area, he added: “I think we should absolutely ensure that our women and children are safe in this country. And if that involves a few extra patrols on a sort of neighbourhood watch-style basis within the bounds of the law, because there just aren’t sufficient police able to be out there on the streets for whatever reason, then yes, I think that is a sensible, community-spirited thing to do.”
His comments come amid a wave of protests outside asylum hotels over recent weeks across the country, including in London, Newcastle and Epping in Essex. Police have been forced to make a series of arrests after protests turned violent.
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