Spurs and BBC distance themselves from BLM after ‘gagged on Zionism’ tweet

Concern over antisemitic and anti-Israel social media posts by groups linked to the Black Lives Matter movement this week led to the first supportive organisations distancing themselves from it.

According to reports in the Telegraph, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and the BBC are among the first to advise their personnel to drop any physical or overt display of support, including the wearing of badges and ‘taking the knee’.

It follows a tweet from BLMUK account – which is not the movement’s official organisation – that “mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism”.

The official BLM account is yet to disavow the tweet.

At a local level, there was concern after BLM Oxford used an image of an antisemitic mural for an event on Facebook, although it quickly removed the post and apologised after a councillor pointed it out.

The Telegraph reported a BBC source as saying that the national broadcaster “cannot be seen to support any kind of cause over another, and Black Lives Matter is certainly a campaign,” as they confirmed that presenters would not wear “visual symbols of support”.

It also noted that Spurs had become the first Premier League football club to distance itself from BLM, with director Donna-Maria Cullen telling a fan that chairman Daniel Levy was “equally disappointed” by the tweets, adding: “It is unacceptable that a value-based action is being hijacked by those with their own political agenda.”