Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has banned the annual Al Quds march in London, agreeing to a Metropolitan Police request that the event posed too great a risk of serious public disorder in the current climate.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley assessed that the scale of the planned demonstration and multiple counter-protests — set against the backdrop of the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran — had crossed the threshold that justified a ban.
Mahmood said: “I have approved the Metropolitan Police’s request to ban the Al Quds march. I am satisfied doing so is necessary to prevent serious public disorder, due to the scale of the protest and multiple counter-protests, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.”
She added that any stationary demonstration that proceeded would face strict police conditions. “I expect to see the full force of the law applied to anyone spreading hatred and division instead of exercising their right to peaceful protest,” she said.
The Met backed the decision in stark terms. “The context is so uniquely complex and the risks are so severe that placing conditions on the protest will not be sufficient to prevent it from resulting in serious public disorder – running the risk of injury to members of the public, protesters, police officers and damage to property,” it said.
‘No place in our society’
The Telegraph reports the ban came after justice minister Sarah Sackman became the first minister to call publicly for it, saying on Tuesday morning that the march had “no place in British society.” Sackman KC, the MP for Finchley and Golders Green, said: “I’m clear that hate marches like the Al Quds march have no place in British society. And the authorities and police should take the enforcement action needed against these marches.”
She added: “I am very clear that that kind of behaviour is not legitimate and we should be doing everything we can to quash that kind of hatred on the streets of this country.”
The Al Quds march is organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, which describes it as a peaceful event in support of Palestinians. Labour MPs and peers have branded it a “hate march,” accusing the IHRC of links to Iran and extremism.
The demonstration forms part of an international series of protests established by Iran’s first supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, designed to mobilise opposition to Israel and express solidarity with Palestinians. Previous marches have seen arrests, clashes with police, the burning of the Israeli flag and — before Hezbollah’s proscription in 2019 — the waving of the terror group’s flag.
The IHRC had predicted a larger than usual turnout this year, with thousands expected to attend in the wake of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
It is the first march to be banned since 2012, when the then Tory-led Coalition Government blocked a series of English Defence League protests over fears of serious public disorder.
