England footballer Tyrone Mings has called out the UK’s home secretary Priti Patel for pretending to be disgusted by racist abuse after she had recently described taking the knee as “gesture politics”.
Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were all targets of racial abuse after the trio missed their penalties in the Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy at Wembley on Sunday night.
Mings replied to Patel’s original post on Twitter where she said she was disgusted by the online abuse England players had suffered. The Aston Villa defender’s requoted tweet gained over 165,000 retweets, accusing Patel of “stoking the fire”.
You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens. https://t.co/fdTKHsxTB2
— Tyrone Mings (@OfficialTM_3) July 12, 2021
In an interview with GB News, Patel stated that she didn’t support “people participating in that type of gesture politics”, adding that it’s “a choice” for fans to boo England players taking the knee.
As reported by the BBC, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to hold a future meeting with various social media giants including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Tik-Tok to discuss online abuse.