The 2020 BRIT Awards provided a platform for Dave, winner of best British album for ‘Psychodrama’, to highlight a series of acute political issues: from Grenfell to Windrush to the treatment of Meghan Markle in the press. Most controversial, though, was the accusation he levelled against Boris Johnson, labelling him a ‘real racist’ in an extended performance of his song, Black. These claims have proved divisive, encountering unadulterated praise from some as a watershed moment in British music and politics, and outrage from others.

One recurring criticism of Dave’s political message is that it is simply boring, an uncontroversial statement designed to earn the adulation of the ‘Guardianista market’. Albeit in softer terms, this point is raised even by those who agreed with him, and not altogether unreasonably. Dave didn’t say anything that we don’t already know, nor did he frame it in a new light. Johnson’s references to African children as ‘flag-waving piccaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’ or ‘AIDS-ridden choristers’ have been revisited time and time again. His prejudices have been freely available in print since 2004, smuggled under a flimsy cover of political satire in his novel, ’Seventy-Two Virgins’. How could anyone hope to discern Johnson’s authorial voice in the fictive world of Roger Barlow, a hapless and messy-haired bicycle-riding MP on a mission to foil an Islamist plot against Parliament?

“‘Racism’ is a word that defies nuance. It is an absolute.”

We know where Johnson stands, and it hasn’t remotely hampered his electoral success or credibility. This isn’t even the first time that the issue has been raised on the BRIT Awards stage, echoing Stormzy’s criticisms of Theresa May last year, as well as performances from Skepta in 2017 and Kanye West in 2015. However, no matter how many times it has been argued in the past, this is a matter that bears repeating as long as people – be they Priti Patel or the denizens of Twitter – continue to defend Johnson. His racist remarks cannot be dismissed as the gaffes of a lovable buffoon, and they should raise serious concerns over the nature of Conservative policy.

There is a pervasive idea that Johnson is not, as Dave alleges, a ‘real racist,’ because he does not materially or politically discriminate against people of colour. In the wake of the BRIT performance, LBC celebrated Nick Ferrari tying a caller in knots, unable to offer any example of Johnson putting forward a racist policy.

Perhaps the Windrush scandal, the continuation of deportation flights and May’s ‘hostile environment’ policy, touched upon by Dave in his much-discussed verse, comes to mind – or maybe the recent hire of an outspoken advocate of eugenics.

“Artists like Tyler and Dave are right to make use of the platform provided by the BRIT Awards...”

A draft conclusion of the delayed Windrush review found the Home Office ′institutionally racist,′ a term that appears notably in the 1999 inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence by the Metropolitan Police. The Home Office is attempting to water down these judgements in review. This is not to mention that one of the few policies in Johnson’s 2019 manifesto sought the criminalisation of traveller communities, an ugly expression of anti-ziganist bigotry. While Johnson may not have personally conceived these policies, he is responsible for unapologetically overseeing their implementation and refusing to oppose them.

Regardless of your opinion of the Windrush report, questions as to whether or not there are any tangible examples of Johnson’s racism in policy ignore a more insidious threat. The presence of a politically acceptable face of unrepentant racism at the head of government has enormous potential for harm beyond its policy implications.

‘Racism’ is a word that defies nuance. It is an absolute. To be racist is to be utterly indefensible, and critics could likely benefit from an extended vocabulary that isn’t stretched to cover everything from microaggressions rooted more in ignorance than in malice to apartheid states and the Ku Klux Klan. While Johnson does not belong to this latter extreme, he is more than happy to project a normalised image of ‘acceptable’ racism and weaponise prejudice for political advantage. He is a ‘real racist’.

This is not a statement that ought to be controversial. The evidence speaks overwhelmingly to Johnson’s character and beliefs, and the fact that it seems to have been met with indifference from the electorate is not tedious, but disturbing. Why Dave’s words proved contentious is a matter for speculation: partisan allegiance in some cases, perhaps bigotry in others.

A long-standing feeling of political correctness gone mad, and ‘woke’ intolerance seems to be at play also – that allegations of racism tarnish the accused too indiscriminately and are too frequently applied to perceived minor indiscretions. Dave’s words on this point are some of his most powerful, asking why he should be ‘grateful’ that society is more equal than it once was when there is still so far to go: ‘the least racist is still racist’.

Dave was not alone on the BRIT Awards stage in denouncing institutional racism within the British government: best international male solo artist, Tyler, the Creator, hit out at Theresa May for his five-year ban over lyrics that supposedly incited hatred. Artists like Tyler and Dave are right to make use of the platform provided by the BRIT Awards for as long as their comments provoke the same hateful vitriol they are accused of spreading and people like Boris Johnson occupy positions of power.