Met Police Denies Pro-Palestine March Extention Into Whitehall

Protesters in Trafalgar Square, central London, during a pro-Palestine march organised by Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Oct. 21, 2023. (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

The Met Police has said that it does not support a request to extend the pro-Palestine march into Whitehall this Saturday.

London police have denied permission to organisers of this Saturday’s “Stop the Genocide, Ceasefire Now” demonstration to access the City of Westminster, home to the government in Central London.

A Met spokesman told The Epoch Times that, “We must balance the rights of protestors with the rights of others.”

He said that “the scale and frequency of marches is causing serious disruption to many Londoners.”

“We do not support a request to extend the march into Whitehall. Our teams continue to work with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and many others ahead of Saturday,” he added.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism told The Epoch Times by email: “The Met Commissioner has repeatedly said that his force is striking a balance between the right to protest and the rights of others. But when 90 percent of British Jews say that they would avoid travelling to a city centre if an anti-Israel protest is taking place there, how can the Met pretend that it is getting the balance right?

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“The police are finally enacting some restrictions on these marches, but it is too little too late. These demonstrations have featured mass criminality, glorification of terrorism, genocidal chanting, antisemitic rhetoric and even violence. Our urban centres have become no-go zones for Jews. The Met’s decision today still fails to confront the scale of the problem.”

The Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists, who control Gaza, led attacks on Israel, killing over 1,200, including children, and taking over 240 hostages. Some of the dead were found to have been raped, burnt, and decapitated.

Protesters have been calling for a ceasefire and an end to the conflict as well as civilian deaths between Israel IDF troops and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip since.

‘No Reasonable Rationale’

In a statement, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said that “despite the fact that this arrangement has worked well on several of our previous marches, the police have so far not given permission. No reasonable rationale was given.”

It added that if they are not allowed access to Whitehall, “people would not be able to protest outside Downing Street.”

“We have written to the police urging them to reconsider, to agree to our request for a second stage and to accept that we have the right to march to the seat of government,” it added.

Hundreds of thousands of people have protested every Saturday into London since The Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7.

Hamas is a proscribed terrorist group in the UK. Members of Hamas or those who invite support for the group could be jailed for up to 14 years.

PSC has links to many trade unions in the UK, including the National Education Union and UNISON, to name a few.

It is also in coalition with the Muslim Association of Britain, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, and Friends of Al-Aqsa. The latter is a pro-Palestinian NGO whose work was said to have a “particularly incendiary effect” in evidence sent to the Home Affairs Select Committee Counter Extremism Inquiry.

It also cooperates with far-left groups such as Stop the War Coalition Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

PSC also has support from the Socialist Worker, the UK’s “revolutionary socialist newspaper.”

A few days after the Hamas attack on Israel, the publication wrote, “Rejoice as Palestinian resistance humiliates racist Israel.”

‘Biggest Convergence of Threats’

In January, The Met’s Counter Terrorism Command said it has launched around 30 investigations into suspected offending at protests since Oct. 7, the majority of which relate to potential terrorism offences.

In December, senior Met police officers told a committee that the scale of policing pro-Palestine events is beyond that of the 2012 London Olympics.

Police said that they have more than 800 “open hate crimes,” which need over 6,000 hours of police time to investigate all of them, and what they are “seeing in London is the biggest convergence of threats we’ve seen” and that “the impact of major global events being felt on the streets of London.”

Met Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes said they are also watching for Iranian influence.

“Since January of last year, we have been involved with MI5 in the disruption of over 15 threats to life associated with Iranian state aggression toward dissident voices in the UK,” he said, adding that this is still “fueling online fueling polarisation and division” in communities.

He said that the “appetites” some of those state actors might have to fuel division in the UK “will be even more acute.”

“We have at the moment no direct evidence to link state action,” he said, but he added that  the Iranian interest in the conflict is “obviously very well well rehearsed, and that would be the principal concern in the case.”

PA Media contributed to this report.