Justice secretary calls for Armistice Day pro-Palestine march to be postponed

Conservative MPs have added to pressure to ban this Saturday’s pro-Palestine march in central London as the justice secretary said he did not believe it should go ahead.

There was also divergence from the description by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, of “hate marches” as Alex Chalk said those taking part included people peacefully expressing their “anguish at the untold suffering” in Gaza.

The justice secretary told Sky News he did not believe the pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day should proceed and called on the organisers to listen to the call from the Metropolitan police to postpone the demonstration.

Chalk told Times Radio: “I think those recommendations should be adhered to. The organisers should give the greatest possible weight to that recommendation from the police and they should abide by it.”

He declined to endorse Braverman’s use of the term “hate marches”, telling the BBC’s Today programme: “It’s also fair and reasonable to point out that there will be those on these marches who will not be consumed by illegality, are not calling for jihad and so on.”

Calls for action against the march was growing on the Tory backbenches. James Sutherland, the MP for Bracknell, said: “The police must stop any odious behaviour at the Cenotaph. But far better for the government to ensure that no protest goes near it in the first place.”

On Monday night, the Metropolitan police appeared to be on the brink of banning Saturday’s march through London after saying a protest on Remembrance Day would be inappropriate and risked violence.

After a meeting between organisers of the protest and the Met, a statement was issued claiming that “the risk of violence and disorder linked to breakaway groups is growing”.

Saturday’s protest is scheduled to start at 12.45pm at Marble Arch and end at the US embassy in south-west London, about two miles from the Cenotaph, where formal remembrance events will be held the next day.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which is organising the event, tweeted on Tuesday morning: “We will protest on Saturday as we have done ever since Israel’s savage assault on Gaza began, killing more than 10,000 people, including nearly 5,000 children.

“Our marches are peaceful, well organised and a fundamental democratic right. See you on Saturday.”