No grounds to ban pro-Palestine march in London on Armistice Day, Met believes
Scotland Yard does not believe it has grounds to support a ban on the planned pro-Palestine demonstration through central London on Armistice Day, the Guardian has learned.
Sources say the legal threshold needed, which requires intelligence pointing to a risk of serious disruption, has not yet been met.
The government has been pressing the Metropolitan police to use their powers to ask for a ban of the proposed protest on Saturday.
Earlier on Tuesday, the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, told Sky News he did not believe the pro-Palestine march should proceed.
Those attending the marches in recent weeks have been calling for a ceasefire in the war that broke out last month after Hamas killed 1,400 people in Israel and took more than 200 hostages.
Thousands of civilians in Gaza have been killed in the Israeli military operation since, according to Gaza’s health authority, which is run by Hamas.
Saturday’s protest is scheduled to start at 12.45pm at Marble Arch and end at the US embassy in south-west London, about 2 miles from the Cenotaph, where formal remembrance events will be held the next day.
Ministers had been raising the prospect of disorder on Armistice Day – Saturday 11 November – for days.
Home office sources said the risks included that of groups splintering off from the main procession, the danger of counter-protests clashing with pro-Palestine protesters and the unusual route of the march.
On Monday the Met pleaded with organisers to postpone the protest, claiming there was a risk of violence, a request that was declined.
The founder of the far-right English Defence League (EDL), Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, tweeted: “Saturday 11/11/11 London, your country needs you.”
Under section 13 of the 1986 Public Order Act, a chief constable is able to apply to the local council and home secretary to prohibit public processions in a particular area if it is believed that setting conditions will not prevent serious public disorder.
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A spokesperson for the civil liberties group Liberty said it was unaware of any protest on the scale proposed by the pro-Palestine coalition of organisers that had been prohibited under section 13 of the Public Order Act.
There is little publicly accessible data but between 2005 and 2012 the Home Office approved 12 such banning orders, of which 10 had been triggered by plans for marches by far-right political groups.
In 2012, the then home secretary banned marches by the EDL in the London boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Islington.
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has described the pro-Palestine protests that have taken place over recent weekends as “hate marches”. Critics of the home secretary have accused her of fuelling anger and the potential for trouble.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said Labour backed the police to make the right decision but suggested Braverman had been “encouraging people to exploit tensions and exploit situations and make them harder for the police to sort out”.