British Leaders Express Concern at Massive Gaza Protest Planned for Armistice Day

Activists from right-wing Turning Point UK hold a counter-protest to the National March fo
Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images
Oliver JJ Lane

A large Gaza demonstration is planned for central London on November 11th, and while the British government has expressed concern and implied that it hopes the police ban the protest, it has stopped short of taking any action to stop the protest.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called a plan to host a large pro-Palestine rally in central London on the same day as the nation commemorates its fallen soldiers on the anniversary of the end of the Great War on November 11th, 1918 “provocative and disrespectful”. Saying there was a risk the national memorial to the dead of the First and Second World Wars could be “desecrated” and that this would be an “affront to the British public” the Prime Minister said ordinary Britons had the right “to remember in peace and dignity, those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice” for freedom.

Yet despite his clear concern for trouble on the day commemorated as Armistice Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the U.S., where the King will lay a wreath at the Cenotaph and a considerable march past of troops and veterans has taken place annually for over a century, the PM made no hard move to stop it happening. Instead, Sunak said he had asked his subordinate the Home Secretary “to support the Met Police in doing everything necessary to protect the sanctity of Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.”

Home Secretary Suella Braverman was also apparently indecisive, publishing a statement in which she called the march on Armistice Day “unacceptable”. However, as to whether it would go ahead or not, Braverman spoke in detached terms, as if the government minister responsible for law and order in the United Kingdom is not responsible for making such decisions.

She wrote: “If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder… I have full confidence in the Metropolitan Police to ensure public safety and take all factors into account as they have done in similar situations in the past.”

Dropping a hint, perhaps, without actually going to the length of announcing she was banning the march herself, Braverman appended a link to a 2011 article in her message about the Police then banning a march in central London by the English Defence League with the permission of the then Home Secretary Theresa May.

London’s Metropolitan Police, meanwhile, say they are working with organisers of the pro-Palestine march to make sure it doesn’t go near the events commemorating the end of the Great War at the Cenotaph outside the Palace of Westminster, reports The Guardian. The paper also reports the comments of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has scoffed at the “posturing” by Conservatives over the two events in London on one day, pointing out Home Secretary Braverman has the power to ban the march if she wanted to.

The buck-passing of the British Conservative Party leaders in the face of a potentially major confrontation in the nation’s capital city contrasts sharply with the decisions of other major European nations. France and Germany have both outright banned Palestine marches in recent weeks.

As reported last month, Emmanuel Macron’s French government outright banned pro-Palestine rallies because they are “likely to generate disturbances to public order”. Going further, France said it was going to start deporting “trouble makers” who whipped up antisemitism in France.

Germany saw chaos in Berlin last month after it banned a pro-Palestine protest but its supporters took to the streets anyway to face down with police, leading to a riot. Fires were set and several officers were injured in the clashes.

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