Team Blitz India
LONDON: UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has kicked up a row after accusing the country’s largest police force, Metropolitan Police, of having a “double standard” in dealing with aggression during the protests.
In an article in The Times, she accused the force of not tackling the “hate marchers” protesting on the streets of London against the IsraelHamas conflict.
Meanwhile, both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called for her sacking. Asking a question in the House of Commons on November 9, the shadow home secretary said: “Does this Government still believe in the operation independence of the police, and how can it do so while this Home Secretary is in post?” ‘Sunak must act’
Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey asked the Prime Minister to sack Braverman. He said: “Rishi Sunak must finally act with integrity by sacking his out-of-control Home Secretary.
In a warning to the police, Braverman had pointed out that if a planned pro-Palestinian protest march goes ahead this weekend, an “assertive and proactive approach to any displays of hate” will be expected from the officers on duty. “There have been dignified vigils in London held by Britain’s Jewish community, but that is not what has tested our capacity to maintain public order,” Braverman wrote in the newspaper.
“It is the pro-Palestinian movement that has mobilised tens of thousands of angry demonstrators and marched them through London every weekend. From the start, these events have been problematic, not just because of violence around the fringes but because of the highly offensive content of chants, posters and stickers. This is not a time for naiveté,” she noted.
Israel demonised
“We have seen with our own eyes that terrorists have been valorised, Israel has been demonised as Nazis and Jews have been threatened with further massacres… I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza. They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists – of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland,” she wrote.
A perception
“Unfortunately, there is a perception that senior police officers play favourites when it comes to protesters… Right-wing and nationalist protesters who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behaviour are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law? I have spoken to serving and former police officers who have noted this double standard,” she stated.
Her intervention came a day after her boss, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, summoned Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to discuss policing plans over the Remembrance weekend.
In a statement on November 8, Sunak said that the “right to peacefully protest” will be respected after reassurances that the police are taking every step necessary to safeguard the Remembrance services.
