Attempts by the Prime Minster, former Home Secretary and the Metropolitan Police to stop the National March for Palestine taking place in London on 11 November were “dangerous days for democracy”, Stop the War Coalition (StWC) told MPs today.
Giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee session on the Policing of Protest, Chris Nineham, StWC vice chair, told MPs how the Metropolitan Police put “enormous pressure” on the march organisers to call the demonstration off, without giving any practical reason for doing so.
He said: “It was obvious that this was as a result of meetings they had had with Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak, who publicly said the demo should not happen.”
“It was very important that we said to the police that we were going to uphold our right to protest. Those were dangerous days for democracy, days in which the fundamental right to protest was seriously under threat. Although to their credit the police did defy Braverman and Sunak, they did that because we held the line, and I’m very proud that we did, because we took a stand for democracy.”
Chris Nineham described how the police have mischaracterised the marches to give the impression they are “hate marches”, to use the words of the then home secretary. As chief steward at the demonstrations, he had seen an increasingly “political” policing since the first national march for a ceasefire on 14 October, a week after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack.
Answering questions about the relationship between the march organisers and the Metropolitan Police, Chris Nineham said:
“There are two areas where things have got difficult with the police. First, I think the police have been part of a wider tendency to mischaracterise the marches, to give the impression that, despite their official statements, that they are somehow, to quote our former home secretary, “hate marches” – violent or hateful or somehow threatening. And that includes the unprecedented use of Section 12 orders, huge police mobilisations, giving out leaflets on the demonstrations, which is very unusual, talking about possible arrests, and generally on social media implying that the demonstrations have been somehow problematic.
“And then the police really pressured us to cancel the 11 November demonstration. I think the police have been under a lot of pressure from the government, which is very hostile to our cause, to the cause of peace, to the cause of the Palestinians, to stop the marches happening.”
Chris Nineham explained to MPs that the marches have been extremely diverse and inclusive, including a huge number of Jewish people.
“They are universalist demonstrations for two things – the right of nations to self-determination and for the sanctity of human life. They are a demonstration of the deep democratic deficit in society over questions of foreign policy and how the political classes have become completely adrift from public opinion.”
Chris Nineham was joined by Ben Jamal of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Yasmine Adam of the Muslim Association of Britain in discussing how the organisers of the national Palestine solidarity marches in London have worked with the police.
Watch a clip of the evidence session here.