 Since the killing of George Floyd, this may and the eruption of a global Black Lives Matter movement, English footballers have been taking a knee at the start of matches. However, due to COVID restrictions, they have been making the symbolic gesture to empty stadiums. That was until this weekend, and Millwall fans caused outrage when they responded to their team taking a knee by booing. Now, right wingers have defended the booing, saying this is not against anti-racism, it's against the specific demands of the organization Black Lives Matter, the specific extreme demands of the organization Black Lives Matter. Among them was Richard Tice, who's chair of the Brexit Party, who ash-faced down today on Politics Live. They are anti-police, they're anti-capitalism, they're anti-the family, they are a dangerous, Marxist organization. I can't help but laugh at Richard's earlier comments about BLM being a scary anti-capitalist, anti-family organization. As was said, it's widely recognized as a movement of hundreds of thousands of people who shared a shared goal about combating institutional racism, particularly in law enforcement. Because what it reminds me of is the fact that Martin Luther King, when he was alive, never enjoyed the support of the majority of white Americans. He simply didn't. Two-thirds of white Americans had a negative view of him. Why? Because he was characterized as a Marxist, as in league with the communists. And this wasn't some fringe idea, this is what the FBI was saying. So I don't think there's anything wrong with being a Marxist, it would be kind of hypocritical if I did. However, this is how anti-racist movements throughout history have been delegitimized. It's by this kind of red scare tactics, and it's absurd. And I think, and I'm really glad about this, more and more people can see through the absolute absurd guff that's coming from people like Richard Tice. Richard Tice's face when Ash was giving him that lesson in history was a joy to watch. Ash, well done. You made your point very well there. Yeah, he accused me of hurling obscenities after I said absurd guff. And I thought, my God, Mary Whitehouse in the building sounds easily shocked. It is a very good point though, right? This idea that, because it's not just him, we're going to in a moment sort of see George Eustace talking about this. Lots of right-wingers who are saying, no, this has nothing to do with anti-racism per se. This has to do with the explicit aims of the Black Lives Matter organization, who are anti-police, who are communist, who are Marxist. And so therefore it's absolutely right to boo Black players taking the knee. Who aren't Marxist, by the way, I haven't really seen anyone claiming that the players taking a knee are themselves, anti-police, Marxist, etc., etc. But it still does have quite a lot of traction, potentially more in the general public than necessarily in mainstream politics as well. This might be something which is a resentment, which is more brewing than one which is sort of expressed in polite opinion. I don't know what you think about that. Well, I think it's something which is becoming mainstreamed. So once upon a time, this kind of scaremongering around cultural Marxism, this idea that leftists have infested liberal institutions like the BBC or universities or the civil service, under pursuing an agenda which is hostile to white supremacy, really. Hostile to white nationalism is trying to get demographic change in through the backdoor. This is an idea which is being quoted with alarming regularity and referred to with alarming regularity by conservative front benches. It's something that we see from our Equalities Minister, Kemi Batnok. It's something which Ben Bradley has been going on about. Once upon a time, this was kind of confined to the weeder corners of the internet, and now it's very much front and centre of our politics. There has always been this connection between anti-communism, McCarthyism, and the monstering of liberation movements, whether that's for gay rights, whether it was for civil rights, whether it was feminism. It's because in the political imaginary, and this also has a real strong relationship to anti-Semitism, there's this idea that decadent city dwellers who are often coded as Jewish are kind of manipulating and pulling the strings to weaken the strong foundations of Western civilization, i.e. patriarchy, i.e. heteronormativity, i.e. white supremacy. I think that this is something which, unfortunately, is not going to be confined to full-time clowns like Richard Tice. I think it's something which is going to have this kind of quite toxic drip effect on the public discourse, especially because we don't see very many people in the press willing to push back on it. When you think about the amount of bandwidth that Labour anti-Semitism stories has taken up in the last few years, you don't see anywhere near that kind of attention being paid to the fact that a well-known anti-Semitic trope and conspiracy theory around cultural Marxism is now considered part of the course amongst our governing party. BBC viewers today were lucky enough to get Ash's insights, but as you know, Navarro media viewers, get them every Monday night. If you are not already, do make sure you subscribe to the channel. On this topic, the Tories are split on how to respond, so this was George Eustace on Sunday giving his response to Millwall fans booing players taking the knee. Now, this week we saw some football fans returning to stadiums and at a Millwall game, when the players took the knee to support Black Lives Matter, there was an awful lot of booing by supporters. What was your reaction to that? Well, look, I didn't see that event. I know that, look, obviously, the issue of race and racial discrimination is something that we all take very, very seriously. My personal view is that Black Lives Matter, capital B, L and M is actually a political movement that is different to what most of us believe in, which is standing up for racial equality. But look, each individual can take their own choices about how they reflect this. And I know a lot of people feel quite strongly enough taking that approach. So that was George Eustace, the Environment Minister, very much taking the Richard Tice approach to all of this. I hadn't realised that George Eustace stood as a candidate for UKIP in 1999. Anyway, on Tory divisions, James Cleverly, Foreign Office Minister, took a different line this morning. Those players on the pitch were displaying solidarity with people who are fighting against racism in society, and that is not something that should be booed. I want to go to you again, Ash, for your analysis on this, because there's two, I suppose, interpretations of the difference between what George Eustace said and what James Cleverly said. One is that they genuinely have different beliefs. So George Eustace was a member of UKIP. He might be someone who is quite hostile to anti-racist movements in general. James Cleverly obviously a black man, so you might think he has more awareness of how racism works in this society. So it could be about their personal beliefs and commitments, or it could be that there is some confusion at the top of the Conservative Party about what the public believe. So George Eustace there potentially thought the public are on the side of people who hate Black Lives Matter, so I'm going to try and tap into this sentiment. And James Cleverly obviously spoke a day later, so potentially there were some people in the Tory party who said, no, we don't want to be that nasty party who backs Millwall fans of all people, booing black players, taking the knee in solidarity of people who are victims of police violence. I mean, I think it being a day later is really important here. So after George Eustace's comments were reported by The Guardian, The Guardian's headline did change. So I think that there was some pushback from the number 10 press office saying, well, that isn't precisely what George Eustace meant, particularly the bit which was reported as him saying that he respected the Millwall fans. It might have been a sort of gumming of the syntax and the meaning of what he actually meant to say is that he respected the Millwall players for taking the knee. So I think that there was an alertness to that backlash and a sense that he had misjudged something of the mood. And James Cleverly, regardless of whether or not what he later said reflected his personal opinion, you know, it took a very different tone. One thing that I think is really important to say is that when it comes to Black Lives Matter, you can see whatever it is you want to see based in the polling that you choose. If you ask a reactionary question about Black Lives Matter tends to be that you'll get a reactionary answer. If you pose a more sympathetic question, you will generate more sympathetic views. And I think that what this speaks to in terms of the public's view of anti-racism is that when it comes to generalised, moral, universal positions about racism, people are really into it, right? Because we've understood, particularly I think in the last 50 years, anti-racism to be questions of morality is how we remember the figure of Martin Luther King, not as a political figure so much as a moral one, an ethical one. It's almost a kind of secular saint where he's decoupled from his context somewhat and presented to everybody as a shining example of what we should all be as human beings. And then when you get into the actual specifics of what do you want people to do about racism, are some of those protest tactics going to generate tension? Is it uncomfortable to have to deal with and confront institutional racism within your society? You will get polling which will tell you that this is an incredibly divisive issue. Black Lives Matter is splitting the country. It's completely counterproductive for the cause of anti-racism in the first place. And looping it back to the point about Martin Luther King, and this is a point which I make a lot. Two-thirds of white Americans had a negative opinion of Martin Luther King. By the time he was assassinated, his approval ratings were at minus 75. And it's not just about Martin Luther King as an individual. When the march on Washington took place, there was an overwhelmingly negative view about that amongst white Americans. Same with sit-ins, same with the freedom riders. There has never been a case in which anti-racist organizing has enjoyed the majority of support amongst the dominant group. And I think that one thing that we need to get better at as the left, and as committed anti-racists, is arguing that point because there's some quite selective and scurrilous quoting of poll material at the moment around Black Lives Matter. And I think for some leftists to see the culture war and see the left's disadvantaged position on the culture war, they look at that and they go, oh, better not tread there. Or it's actually about treading smart.