Liberal Democrats demand answers over institutional racism in Metropolitan Police

Southwark Liberal Democrats are demanding that the Metropolitan Police be hauled in front of the council’s main scrutiny committee to answer for new revelations of racist behaviour by the police, shown in a recent Panorama documentary. 

Panorama's secret filming shows officers making sexualised comments to colleagues and sharing racist views about immigrants and Muslims. 

The revelations come 2 years after Baroness Casey completed her review into the Met, which found that the police force in London was institutionally racist, misogynist, and homophobic. 

In 2023, the Liberal Democrats tabled an amendment to Council Assembly motion calling for no confidence in the Metropolitan Police, but this was voted down by Labour. 

Since then, a number of reforms within the Met had apparently taken place to address the issue – but the revelations yesterday show that racism and misogyny have only been driven underground rather than expunged entirely.  

Commenting, Southwark Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Victor Chamberlain said:  

“The documentary last night was deeply disturbing – and shows that despite Baroness Casey’s findings of institutional racism, misogyny, and homophobia, these problems remain endemic across the police force in London.  

Liberal Democrats have consistently campaigned to fix the Met and restore public trust in our police – but our Labour Mayor is clearly not able to tackle the deep-rooted issues that pervade a service that should be there to protect Londoners. With Labour controlling every lever of power in London, it's clear where responsibility for fixing the Met lies.

We’re calling for the Borough Commander to urgently attend Southwark’s scrutiny committee so that we can get answers about what is happening locally to ensure that this abhorrent behaviour is genuinely not happening in our borough.”