Police officers should not be “bullied” into taking the knee in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, Boris Johnson has said. Some officers knelt as a sign of respect at demonstrations in central London last month following the killing of George Floyd in the US, after the Metropolitan Police told staff that it was a personal decision. Mr Johnson indicated in an LBC phone-in that he would not himself go down on one knee, a gesture which originated in the US in 2016 when American football player Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the US national anthem as a protest against police brutality. “I don’t believe in gestures, I believe in substance. I don’t want people to be bullied into doing things they don’t

Source: The Times July 03, 2020 11:03 UTC