Starmer says some pro-Palestinian protests could be banned amid attacks on British Jews | Politics
The prime minister warned some pro-Palestinian demonstrations could be halted after Britain’s most senior police officer said the threat to the Jewish community was greater than ever.
Keir Starmer has said he wants the language expressed at some protest marches to be subject to “tougher action” as he seeks to allay the fears of British Jews following a series of attacks on their communities in recent weeks.
“When you see it, when you hear some of the slogans that I would choose, such as ‘globalise the intifada’, it becomes clear that tougher action needs to be taken on this,” Starmer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
While he said he would not interfere with day-to-day policing, he said there were “circumstances” in which he would support stopping some protests altogether.
The Prime Minister’s comments came as Metropolitan police commissioner Mark Rowley said a “dangerous and disturbing” mix of hate crimes, terrorism and the involvement of hostile states had combined to create a terrifying atmosphere for British Jews in the UK.
Asked if the threat to their community was greater than ever before, he said polls revealed the prevalence of antisemitic views and showed “that must be true.”
He told the Times that Jewish communities felt hostility, adding: “You can see it in the way they talk, how it changes their lives. It’s appalling.”
Rowley said British Jews were on the “hate” list of every racist and extremist group: “Whether you’re a far-left, an Islamist terrorist, a right-wing terrorist, and some of the enemy states are also facing Iran-related threats at the moment. There’s a sort of terrible Venn diagram that they’re in the middle of.”
He added: “What bothers me is that this isn’t just about a few racist idiots, this is drawing on something that is more entrenched in society and not questioned. There is too much licensing of this in the public debate.”
There has been a series of incidents in the months since the deadly anti-Semitic terror attack on the Heaton Park synagogue last October. In March, four Jewish community ambulances were set on fire in Golders Green, north-west London, and a memorial wall commemorating Iranian protesters was targeted the following month.
Between these two incidents there were several other attacks, including an attempted arson attack on the Finchley Reform Synagogue in north London, as well as items found near the Israeli embassy on the same day that a former Jewish charity building in Barnet, north London, was attacked.
In a separate incident, the court heard a teenage boy smashed a window at Kenton United Synagogue in Harrow and then lit a bottle and threw it inside.
Starmer stressed that his suggestion that some protest marches could be banned was “not just a discussion this week in response to this terrible incident”. “This has been a discussion we’ve had with the police for some time.”
“Regarding the repeated nature of the marches, many people in the Jewish community told me that it was a repeated nature, that it was a cumulative effect,” he told Today.
Asked if he supports calls for moratorium Regarding the pro-Palestinian marches – particularly from Jonathan Hall, his independent adviser on terrorism – Starmer said: “I think it’s time now to look at the protests in general and the cumulative impact. I think it’s time for some people to protest to think about what the Jewish community is going through and the overall impact it’s having.”
“I will defend very strongly the right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression. I have defended these principles my whole life and I will continue to defend them. So I am not backing down even one step from that. But if you are at a march or a protest where people are chanting ‘globalize the intifada,’ you have to stop and ask yourself, why am I not voicing this?”
