Two-tier policing

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Two-tier policing

A protestor holding a placard saying "TWO TIER KEIR" during the 2024 United Kingdom riots
Origin	Far-right internet
Context	British policing
Coined by	Far-right social media users
Meaning	Police bias against white people

Two-tier policing is the belief or allegation that in the United Kingdom police treat certain groups, political causes, ethnicities or demographics more harshly or more leniently than others.

According to The Lead, the "two-tier policing" allegation was originally used to describe "over-policing and institutional racism against specific communities" around the time of the 1981 Brixton riots.^[1] The Guardian attribute the origin of the two-tier policing claim to far-right activists, noting that Tommy Robinson used the phrase in 2012.^[2]

The journalist Lizzie Dearden has traced the emergence of the term "two-tier policing" on the far right to 2019, when it began to be mentioned in Telegram groups.^[3]

According to The Lead, the far-right co-opted the term to suggest that "police treat certain groups – particularly minorities – more favourably than others", adding that it is sometimes used to refer to people on the right versus the left.^[1] The term spread, being taken up by anti-vaxxers during the COVID-19 pandemic and applied to the police handling of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring.^[3] According to The Guardian, the concept entered the mainstream in 2023 when Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused the Metropolitan Police of "double standards" and favouring the "assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists" and "playing favourites" by suppressing "lockdown objectors" and not Black Lives Matter activists.^[2][4]

Far-right activists applied the concept to the police responses to the largely peaceful Gaza protests and localised Harehills riot compared with the response to widespread national disorder committed during the 2024 United Kingdom riots, arguing white far-right protesters are treated more harshly because of their race and political views.^[5] The phrase 'two-tier Keir' was also adapted as a jibe against Keir Starmer's premiership since 2024.^[6] According to The Lead, the term had been building on the British right for several years, but gained mainstream attention during the riots.^[1] The BBC also noted that the claim first started to circulate in mainstream politics in the summer of 2024, although Tommy Robinson had used the term many years before. ^[6] Following the death of a 61-year-old far-right rioter in October 2024 at HM Prison Moorland, the Reform UK politician Richard Tice was among those who alleged the rioter was sentenced too harshly.^[7]

The writers of two LSE Blogs described the term as an example of white grievance and reverse victimhood.^[8][9]

In January 2025, The Times reported that a leaked, unpublished Home Office internal review described two-tier policing as an extremist ideological belief.^[10] The theory has gained international prominence following its use by Elon Musk, who used the term when criticising government handling of the 2024 riots.^{[11][12][unreliable source?][13]}

Politicians representing the Democratic Unionist Party have accused the Police Service of Northern Ireland of two-tier policing in unionist areas following the 2025 Northern Ireland riots^[14] and the police response to counter-protestors at a pro-Palestine march in Scarva.^[15] The PSNI have rejected these claims.^[14][16]

In June 2026, BBC News defined the term saying: "Two-tier policing is a term used to describe the idea that some groups of people, or some behaviour (for example protests and demonstrations) are dealt with more harshly, more robustly, than others by law enforcement".^[17]

In the aftermath of the murder of Henry Nowak, the debate intensified. In June 2026, leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch - disagreeing with the acting chief constable of West Midlands Police, who denied that there was two-tier policing in the West Midlands - argued that, though not necessarily intentional, it was something people were experiencing and "it is quite clear that something is not right".^[18] Around the same time, Policing minister Sarah Jones condemned anti-racist guidance by the National Police Chiefs' Council that called for police to "respond to individuals and communities according to their specific needs, circumstances and experiences, with understanding that these will be racialised and with the aim of reducing harm", calling it "wrong". Jones was unable to deny that "two-tier policing" exists in Britain and the guidance is now being reviewed by police chiefs.^[19] Nigel Farage called for "pure cold rage" in the wake of the murder, argued it was proof of two-tier policing and demanding an end to what he called "anti-white prejudice".^[20] Based on government statistics, Marvin Rees said that "race and class are key determinants to people's experience of the criminal justice system" but that, contrary to claims of bias against white people, "black people will get worse outcomes than other ethnicities from the criminal justice system".^[20]

Former Labour home secretary David Blunkett and Conservative policing minister Nick Herbert authored a report on police leadership for the College of Policing. Ahead of its publication, in a BBC interview, Blunkett said its findings suggested that across the police service there were weaknesses in leadership, morale and culture. Asked if he thought there was a problem with "two-tier policing", Blunkett said "I think there's a perception". He said "It's gone from the [1999] Macpherson report about outright racism in the force, particularly the reflections in the Met, all the way through to people saying 'oh, it's woke'", adding "We make it clear in the report that there's no room for culture wars or woke. It isn't the job of the police in our country to take sides of any sort. It's the job of the police to deliver".^[21]

The Greater Manchester police chief constable, Stephen Watson, said that there was more work required to address the perception of two-tier policing that was held by some. He also said that he did not believe that there was such a thing in his police force. He added, "I think, to an extent, we have to acknowledge that the public perceive there to be two-tier policing" and added "And whether that be historically people from minority communities or in the aftermath of the tragic Henry Novak case, I think people perceive it now from different quarters and across the board" and "We've uncritically adopted language that persuades people that perhaps we are not as impartial as we should be and so, in a sense, I see the perception".^[17]

The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The i Paper described two-tier policing as a conspiracy theory in 2024, and it was also described as such in a 2025 research paper by criminologists at the University of Salford and Northumbria University.^{[22][11][23][24]} Barrister Sam Fowles called claims of two-tier policing a "spurious conspiracy theory" and criticised mainstream media outlets for treating it as legitimate. He said sentences for 2024 rioters were less severe than those of left-wing protestors prosecuted for disruptive but peaceful acts.^[25] Fowles later stated that in 2025 claims of bias against white people in the justice system similarly spread "generally uncritically, across the traditional media".^[26]

According to The Lead, figures show a longstanding bias against ethnic minorities, especially black people,^[1] and existing research "shows that more needs to be done by the police to better protect immigrants and ethnic minorities in the UK".^[27]

In Police Oracle, former Special Branch officer Chris Hobbs has described accusations, from both the far-right and far-left, of two-tier policing as a misrepresentation of how police predict, monitor, and respond to specific demonstrations, protests, and disturbances.^[28]

According to Novara Media, a FOI request by Global Witness found that the Metropolitan Police's own data revealed that environmental campaigners, with peaceful groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, were significantly more likely to be arrested and charged than agitators who engaged in far-right violence.^[29] According to Netpol, Home Office data has also shown that the Public Order Act was used by police in London more than anywhere else in the country, and that of these 57.7% were used to restrict pro-Palestine demonstrators while only 11.5% were used in relation to far-right protests.^[30] Similarly, in assessing claims of two-tier policing, Byline Times said "a quarter-century of official findings record racial bias in British policing running against black people – the reverse of the “two-tier” bias far-right rioters invoke".^[31]

In 2025 the Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, defended the use of the term as legitimate debate.^[32] In a panel on BBC Politics Live in March that year, the journalist Ash Sarkar challenged the notion of two-tier policing in relation to Pre-sentence Reports, describing the notion as "complete rubbish".^[33]

In June 2026, a Home Affairs Select Committee report on the police response to 2024 riots found there was "no evidence of “two-tier policing” in officers’ handling of the levels of violence and criminality during the period".^[1]

• Institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police
• Police misconduct
• Race and crime in the United Kingdom
• Selective enforcement

• Kelly, Annie; Muir, Hugh; Mulhall, Joe; Biggs, Eleanor; Manley, Ivor; Ktena, Natalie; Zygadlo, Rudi; Khaleeli, Homa (5 June 2026). "How the myth of 'two-tier policing' took hold – podcast". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 July 2026.
• "In racism's echo chamber: the government and criminal justice system's response to the summer 2024". Institute of Race Relations. 18 January 2026. Retrieved 22 July 2026.