BY FRANK HAVILAND

Four years ago to this day, Britain once again showed why she has always been a world leader, never a follower. Against the expressed will of her politicians, the relentless pooh-poohing of the media, and the eternal shrieks of ‘racist!’, the British people stood firm and made the right call, to divorce from the European Union.

Four years on from that referendum and Britain is literally on her knees to a far inferior adversary, Black Lives Matter. Would we win the Brexit referendum if it were held today? I’m not so sure.

Instead of standing up to bullies, we now cower before them. First there are the police who ‘tactically’ ignore public disorder, so long as the perpetrators are of the correct political hue. The constabulary kneeling and fleeing is not only de rigueur, but any copper taking his attestation seriously is now likely under instruction to ‘take the knee’.

Then there’s the ‘woke’ brands kowtowing to diversity, unless it happens to be diversity of opinion. Refuse to believe that George Floyd is a latter-day saint, and you will swiftly be removed from their customer base.

With contrition the only game in town, our seats of learning are reassuringly ahead of the curve. Not content with lenient marking for those pretending to care about a scumbag 4,000 miles away, our universities are now suspending professors who believe grades should be accorded on merit. Oxbridge itself is toppling statues with indecent haste – it makes you wonder whether indoctrination not education is their business.

Do not despair however, a glimmer of hope exists. Alongside the gruelling knee-taking, footballers are now also dictating government policy. Clearly the generosity of multimillionaires – using other people’s tax – knows no bounds. Who better to decide benefits spending than those on a paltry £200k a week, who point blank refused a take a pay-cut during lockdown?

While the pretext for Marcus Rashford’s largesse is a salutary £120million voucher scheme for deprived kids, the reality is a lockdown booze and fags subsidy for the feckless; you can hardly blame them – how else are struggling families supposed to afford £80 football shirts with Black Lives Matter printed on them?

You can forgive the race-baiters and the charlatans milking ‘Black Lives Matter’ for all it’s worth – this is their bread and butter after all, but a government that consistently bows to the mob will not hold office for long. Margaret Thatcher’s take on U-turns is as true today as it was in 1980, and you have to ask what the Iron Lady would have made of such flip-flopping? What is the point of winning an 80-seat majority if you’re going to box up Churchill to placate the mob, only to unbox him for President Macron?

Monsieur Macron of all people! The laughing stock of Europe, not to mention France’s most notorious migrant-groper, allegedly of course. A man for whom 23% popularity, globalism and teacher necrophilia are a daily tonic. A man notwithstanding, who understands tolerating insult to la belle république would be tantamount to political suicide.

Bowing to the mob is never a good look, but in the midst of a pandemic, with every lefty whinger united, the one thing a government absolutely must be is resolute. If it’s leadership you want, you can no longer look to the government, to the police, or to our educational institutions. Instead, it is the individual from whom we must now draw strength: those who stand as others cower. The lone footballer willing to keep his charity private, or his refusal to kneel public; the politician who not only declines to kneel, but defies the mob by refusing to backtrack.  

We don’t’ all have the courage and quiet dignity of Peter Hitchens as the rabid left encircles, but perhaps that is what we should aspire to. As three more innocent lives were taken in Reading this weekend, the only thing more racist than those refusing to kneel, is anyone foolish enough to question the motives of their Libyan terrorist assailant.

We’ve bowed to the mob for too long; it’s time for Britain to get off her knees.