In extraordinary scenes, the Metropolitan police violently arrested Chris Nineham the chief steward of the Palestine march and then called MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell into Charing Cross police station, alongside Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, to give interviews under caution.
Both Chris Nineham, after being held for twenty hours in Walworth Road police station, and Ben Jamal, have now been charged with breaking the Public Order Act. These events surrounding last Saturday’s national Palestine march mark a dramatic escalation in attempts to criminalise Palestine solidarity activity.
The police had already banned the demonstration from assembling at the BBC. When the assembly point was relocated to Whitehall, the police then imposed further conditions to prevent the crowd from marching. On the day, a heavy-handed police presence at first made arrests on Whitehall where protesters were gathering.
Later, after speeches from the stage, a delegation including John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn, and Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, took flowers to lay at the top of Whitehall where there was a police line containing the protest. When they arrived, the police waived the protesters through.
When the delegation reached the north-west corner of Trafalgar Square, and in the middle of discussions about laying flowers in remembrance of the dead in Gaza, half a dozen police officers jumped on Chris Nineham, forcing him to the ground, where he was held until he was dragged away and arrested.
This escalation of repression is unique in modern British politics. It is highly unusual to arrest and charge leaders of social movements and practically unheard of to threaten MPs with arrest for participation in peaceful political protests.
A major defence campaign has now been launched. Labour MP Apsana Begum called on X for the abolition of the Public Order Act and its draconian powers, which give the police the power to ban legitimate political protest.