Police chief criticises Boris Johnson for using ‘officers as a backdrop’ to political speech
Boris Johnson has come in for criticism for using the West Yorkshire police force as a backdrop to a political speech on Thursday.
Chief constable John Robins said he had been misled by Downing Street and told that his police force’s involvement would be “solely about police officer recruitment”.
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“We had no prior knowledge that the speech would be broadened to other issues until it was delivered,” Robin said.
Johnson launched an attack on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and reiterated calls for a general election in front of trainee officers.
Robins said the officers were intended to stand behind the Prime Minister for a shorter speech regarding the Tory’s recruitment campaign to hire 20,000 new police officers.
The initial address was cancelled “minutes before the speech” and replaced by a more politically-charged version.
“I was therefore disappointed to see my police officers as a backdrop to the part of the speech that was not related to recruitment,” the statement from the chief constable read.
The speech came after Johnson suffered heavy blows in Westminster, losing a vote in which Corbyn and allies voted to block a no-deal Brexit, before Johnson suffered another defeat when trying to hold an early general election.
His speech in Wakefield was also marred by an exhausted police officer collapsing and Johnson pleading that: “I would rather be dead in a ditch” than ask for another delay to Brexit.
Labour’s shadow policing minister used the chief constable’s statement to claim it showed the Prime Minister “cannot even be honest with a chief constable”.
“Boris Johnson has deceived the police by knowingly using officers for a nakedly party political stunt, without their prior knowledge,” said Louise Haigh.
“This is a serious breach of trust and the Prime Minister must immediately apologise for putting serving officers in this intolerable position.”
Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake wrote to the cabinet secretary asking for an investigation into whether Johnson had broken ministerial code.
He said ministers “must not use government resources for party political purposes” and that “official facilities and resources may not be used for the dissemination of material which is essentially party political”.
Johnson was also harangued by a man on the streets of Leeds on Thursday, who repeatedly accused the Prime Minister of “playing games”.
“You’re playing games with parliament. You’re playing games with the public,” the man shouted. “You should be in Brussels negotiating. Where’s the negotiation going on? Where is it? You’re in Morley in Leeds. You should be in Brussels.”
After initially not responding, Johnson hit back when the man said the government’s negotiations with Brussels were going nowhere.
“Actually that’s not true at all. We are on the verge of getting a deal,” Johnson said as crowds gathered and some argued with the man challenging him.
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The Prime Minister then got a mixed response when asking onlookers: “Can I just ask people here: do you think we should get out on October 31st?”
Another man shook Johnson’s hand before smiling and saying: “Please leave my town.”
The Prime Minister replied: “I will very soon.”