The Black Police Association are Idiots?

I'm glad it's not just me, Meral's Musings thinks there is something amiss here too.

Please tell me I'm missing a subtlety here but the Black Police Association (BPA) is to not just boycott recruitment of BME officers but to actually use members' money to take out adverts in papers telling potential BME recruits not to apply to the force!

Isn't this completely wrong-heading, counter-productive and idiotic? Am I missing something?

I heard this first on the Today programme yesterday morning and whilst they were a useful and needed debate about racism in the force, everybody was pussyfooting around the use of these ridiculous tactics.

Maybe this was just done to raise awareness and to prompt action (such as the varous reviews that have now been promised), in which case I guess you could make an argument for the threat of a boycott (but not of actively discouraging BME recruits). However, I caught the head of the BPA on the London News:

Q: Do you welcome the enqiry set up by Boris?

A: Yes, very much so, a really positive step.

Q: Will you withdraw your boycott?

A: No.

Again, this was not pushed any further.

How can stopping BME recruits ever be helpful in tackling racism in an organisation? It's madness. Also, in the case of the police, this willl actually have a negative effect on community relations and therefore on the ability to solve/prevent crime.

And surely it will make it harder to create a representative force as the BPA have just told a swathe of BMEs not to join!

Is this just a case of bolshy egos at the top of a sortof-union or am I missing a really clever tactic that isn't at all counter-productive?