Boris Johnson deserves the cold shoulder from England players – No 10’s been fanning the flames of racism for years

Given the way some of England’s football fans and politicians have behaved of late, I wonder if the nation’s magnificent, dignified and thoroughly likeable football team are at least entertaining the idea of following the example set by some of their American counterparts with respect to Donald Trump.

It’s a tradition in the US for successful sports teams to be invited to the White House after a championship year, and while it wasn’t all that uncommon for there to be the odd politically motivated no show, invitations were mostly accepted regardless of the political colours of the president. These events were seen as an honour, one of the rewards for a successful season.

That all changed when Trump, with his history of demeaning black athletes, his description of Mexicans as “rapists” and his talk about “good people on both sides” when neo-Nazis and open racists marched through the streets of Charlottesville, made his home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Basketball’s championship winning Golden State Warriors had their invite withdrawn by the orange foghorn in a fit of pique in 2017 after the all-conquering team’s talismanic point guard Stephen Curry publicly talked about not attending, as had his coach Steve Kerr. The ‘Dubs squared off against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers the following year. The issue was dealt with early when both teams said they wouldn’t go.

Trump also withdrew an initial invite from the 2017 Super Bowl winning Philadelphia Eagles but only after reports indicated that less than a handful of the 53-strong squad of players would attend.

The Boston Red Sox were without manager Alex Cora and a substantial chunk of the World Series winning team for their 2018 visit.

What we call football and Americans call soccer was involved when Team USA captain Megan Rapinoe said she wasn’t “going to the f******g White House” if the nation’s all conquering women’s team won the World Cup. Trump said she should “win before she talks”. Rapinoe did just that.

The England men’s team mightn’t have won the Euros, but in reaching the first major international championship final since 1966, they did win a lot of respect and they were worthy of it.

They, and their manager Gareth Southgate, also won a lot of friends with the way they conducted themselves despite the ugliness that regrettably sometimes trailed in their wake, ugliness that reached a crescendo in the wake of their defeat on penalties during that final.

So while they would surely be deserving of a similar invitation, they would also be entirely justified in turning it down. Downing Street would richly deserve it if they did decide to give it the cold shoulder.

The prime minister might have told the miserable racists who attacked the team’s black players that they should “crawl back under a rock”, but if he had any shame he really ought to crawl back with them.

His grubby history robbed his condemnation of racism of any moral force. He’s never gone quite as far as Trump, but he has regularly blown dog whistles, equivocated over the disgraceful booing England’s players were subjected to when they took the knee, ignored the disgraceful reaction to it by some of his MPs and ministers. Not forgetting, of course, the overt racism he’s been guilty of in some of the newspaper columns he has written down the years.

Home secretary Priti Patel has been taking the most heat, including from England defender Tyrone Mings, who justifiably accused her of “stoking the fires”, a skilfull tackle that proved successful with at least one Tory MP.

But don’t forget that it was Boris Johnson who installed her in the Home Office and sat back as she did her worst. His defence of the boo-boys who got to work when the England players took the knee wasn’t as overt as Patel’s, but he refused to condemn them and his silence spoke volumes.

It is Johnson who created the party whose Twitter-verse leapt to the defence of Patel. One of his attention seeking backbenchers publicly refused to watch their games because of their dignified protest at the start of matches. Another posted that Marcus Rashford might have scored his penalty during the shoot out if he’d “stuck to football” rather than, you know, trying to secure meals for hungry children in his spare time in a WhatsApp group for Tory MPs.

Dover MP Natalie Elphicke subsequently apologised claiming the emotion of the moment. Still on her Twitter feed: pictures of her and Johnson discussing “steps being taken to tackle the small boats crossings”. That would be boats containing refugees risking their lives on the English Channel. While Dover’s MP was waving her fists at these destitute people, her constituency’s hungry children had Rashford. PS: She’s blocked people from replying to her tweets.

I’m not going so far as to call for a boycott of No 10. These players have taken enough grief over the last few days. They are, in some cases, still taking it. They can make their own choices, which we should respect.

But if they do decide to follow the example of their American peers, they deserve the full throated support they should have received on Sunday.