Police weigh up intervention over pro-Palestine protest on Armistice Day as ministers express ‘grave concerns’

Police are assessing the risk to security of a pro-Palestinian demonstration to be held on Armistice Day in London, as ministers express “grave concerns” over the plans.

Pro-Palestine protests have taken place in the capital for four weekends in a row since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October and the retaliation that followed, but plans for a march next Saturday (11 November) are mired in controversy over the sensitivities of the date.

Activists have vowed to push ahead with the march despite criticism from ministers who have cited the importance of Armistice Day and the next day’s Remembrance Sunday commemorations.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said: “At a time that is meant to be solemn remembrance of the sacrifice of previous generations and upholding our British values, I think that the police need to think very carefully about the safety of that demonstration, namely whether it could spill into violent protest and the signal it sends particularly to the Jewish community.”

It is ultimately up to London’s Metropolitan Police force to decide whether to ask Home Secretary Suella Braverman for an order preventing the march from going ahead.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other organises are due to meet with the Met Police on Monday for further talks regarding the protest as the force assesses whether the event would pose a security or public order risk.

The march is not routed to go anywhere near the Cenotaph in Westminster, and will take place hours after a two-minute silence.

Asked whether he is sending a signal to the police that the march currently planned for November 11 should be banned, Mr Dowden said: “The police are operationally independent.

“But I do have very grave concerns about that march, both in terms of how it sits with acts of solemn remembrance and the kind of intimidation that is being sent out by the chants and everything else that goes on at those marches.”

Ms Braverman meanwhile told Sky News: “The police are operationally independent so it’s up to them in the first instance to use their operational judgement based on the facts and the circumstances as they assess them to be.”

The Home Secretary has called pro-Palestine marches “hate marches” and added that any participants who vandalise the Cenotaph “must be put into a jail cell faster than their feet can touch the ground”.

Sir Mark has promised to take a “robust approach” to ensure next weekend’s commemorative events of remembrance are “not undermined”.

Mr Dowden meanwhile said that while he understands “legitimate concerns about the plight of the Palestinian people”, those attending the marches should ask themselves whether they are “inadvertently standing alongside those people who are preaching hate”.

“There is hateful conduct on these marches…hurt is caused when people stand there chanting ‘from the river to the sea’, which is clearly denying the state of Israel or chanting ‘Jihad, Jihad’,” he told Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC.