Met using outdated powers to police pro-Palestine protests, say legal experts | Metropolitan police
The Metropolitan police is using powers it no longer has to suppress pro-Palestinian protests, legal experts say.
Citing evidence obtained by the Guardian and Liberty Investigates, legal experts said officers imposed restrictions on at least two protests based on “total disruption”, since those powers were struck down by the appeal court in May.
The Home Office and the Met insisted officers still had the power to take cumulative disruption into account when imposing restrictions on protests, despite all references to this having been removed from relevant legislation. But many legal experts disagreed.
Raj Chada, partner at Hodge, Jones & Allen and a leading criminal lawyer with expertise in human rights and protest, said: “There is no reference to cumulative impairment in the original document [legislation]. The regulations introducing this concept were repealed in May 2025, so I cannot see how this could still be the police approach. “There is no legal basis for this,” he said.
The Police Monitoring Network (Netpol) said the revelations showed that the “ongoing crackdown on protests” had reached “an alarming point” and that the Met did not care whether it was acting within the law.
Campaign co-ordinator Kevin Blowe said: “The problem is zero accountability from the police and transparency in the use of their powers to restrict or limit protests.”
In October, the home secretary announced plans to reintroduce the power to assess cumulative impact in a toughened form, through the crime and policing bill currently making its way through parliament.
Retired senior constable Nick Glynn, who spent more than 30 years with Leicestershire Police, said: “The police already have a lot of protest powers and they certainly don’t need any more. If they’re given those powers, they’ll not only use them.” [but] as in this case, they extend them. “They go beyond what was intended.”
He added: “The right to protest is sacred and further suppression of protest diminishes the value of democracy.”
Regulations limiting protests if the “cumulative” impact of the protests exceeded the threshold of causing “serious disruption to public life” were rescinded on May 2, 2025, following a legal challenge from human rights group Liberty.
Documents obtained under freedom of information laws show that on May 7, five days after the regulations were repealed, the Met police banned a pro-Palestinian Jewish group from staging a weekly protest at Swiss Cottage in north London, citing the cumulative impact on the local Jewish community. Lawyers for the group known as the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) say the ban has been renewed every week since then.
In November, the Met forced the Palestine Coalition to change the march route with three days’ notice, citing the cumulative impact on businesses over the Black Friday retail weekend. This happened despite the route not being used for more than a year, according to organisers.
Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, recalled that deputy commissioner Alison Heydari told him that her decision on whether to impose conditions, moving the starting point by about half a mile, “will be entirely about the cumulative impact of your protests.”
He reportedly said: “This isn’t just about the protest on Saturday, it’s a combination of all the impacts of all the marches so far.” He cited “serious disruption” to business.
“You used this route in November 2024 and several times before that,” he added. “So there is an impact.”
Jamal said the conditions the Met had repeatedly imposed had caused “enormous disruption” and were “immobilizing”, creating confusion about starting points and “leading to people being harassed” by officers who accused them of breaching protest conditions.
A Met spokesman said: “The outcome of the judicial review does not prevent senior officials from considering the cumulative impact of the protests on the lives of communities.
“To determine the extent of disruption that may result from a particular protest, it is of course important to consider the circumstances in which the protest will take place, including any disruption that the affected community has already experienced.
“We recognize the importance of the right to protest. We also recognize our responsibility to use our powers to ensure that the protest does not cause serious disorder or serious disruption. We use these powers lawfully and will continue to do so.”
The Home Office said a “discretion to consider cumulative deduction” was implied in the Public Order Act 1986 and the upcoming amendment would make this an “explicit requirement”.
