That this House is alarmed by attempts by the Metropolitan Police to prevent an agreed march for Palestine from protesting at the BBC on 18 January 2025; notes the route for the march was confirmed with the police nearly two months ago and as agreed with them was publicly announced on 30 November 2024; believes that the BBC is rightly accountable to the public and that police powers should not be used to shield it from democratic scrutiny; rejects the Metropolitan Police’s claim the march could cause disruption to a nearby synagogue noting that the nearest synagogue to the BBC is not even on the march route; further notes that the Metropolitan Police themselves have acknowledged that there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the previous marches for Palestine, and that thousands of Jewish people have been joining the protests, many of them part of an organised Jewish bloc; notes that since these restrictions were announced nearly 200 MPs, trade union and civil society leaders and groups including Amnesty International UK and Liberty, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, lawyers, journalists and prominent cultural figures as well as over 700 members of the British Jewish community have spoken out in support of the right to protest; and, therefore, calls on the Government to urge the Metropolitan Police to drop these repressive restrictions and allow the planned protest to take place at the BBC.
