Tory MP tells Tyrone Mings to ‘focus on football not politics’ and it went down about as well as you’d expect

A Conservative MP has triggered a backlash after suggesting that England footballer Tyrone Mings should focus on “football not politics”.

Mings criticised home secretary Priti Patel for “stoking the fire” of racism by previously calling taking the knee “gesture politics” and then condemning racist abuse directed against black English footballers following the Euro 2020 final.

Writing on Twitter, Andrew Rosindell responded to the comments and appeared to imply that Mings should not have criticised Patel, despite England being a democracy in which everyone is allowed to express their opinions about politics, regardless of their job.

Writing on Twitter, people expressed this very sentiment:

Footballers including Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho became victims of racism following the Euro final in which they missed penalties during the tense shootout.

Since then, politicians have taken a stand with Conservatives such as Steve Baker and Johnny Mercer suggesting Tories need to change their tone to stop stoking culture wars while social media companies have committed to stamping out hate online – with mixed success.

But it appears Rosindell has not go this memo yet.

A spokesperson for the MP said:

“Andrew doesn’t support England players taking the knee as he views it as a symbol of a Marxist organisation, not as an anti-racist symbol.

“Andrew was pushing back at Mr Mings’ suggestion that the Home Secretary had contributed to the racist abuse when she clearly condemned racism and when she receives such an avalanche of racist abuse herself.”