If you want an illustration of one of the things that is wrong with the Metropolitan Police, you need only look at how some of the best known streets in central London were yet again handed over to protestors this past weekend – including allies and apologists of Hamas. This is the price which the Met’s leadership seems to be willing to pay to keep things quiet in the capital.

Over recent months, these supposedly peaceful demonstrations have included a range of individuals throwing flares, shouting antisemitic chants ‘from the river to the sea’ and calling for there to be a ‘Jihad’. Despite these incidents, there’s a lot of satisfaction with this outcome in the senior command levels at New Scotland Yard. But is their self-confidence justified?

One incident last Saturday appears to encapsulate the Met’s flawed approach

In Northern Ireland, thanks to the Parades Commission, there are extensive limits to the ‘marching season’. In London, meanwhile, the ordinary Londoner is apparently now expected to tolerate mass protest marches all year round.

Up to 250,000 people are believed to have attended this weekend’s protests. Even if this number is right, it would still mean many of the over eight million Londoners were again prevented from going about their normal daily lives. To police this weekend’s protest, officers from 29 different forces were drafted in from as far afield as South Yorkshire and Wales. What is the impact on crime and policing in those towns and cities far from London? What price the ‘right to protest’?

One incident last Saturday appears to encapsulate the Met’s flawed approach. On the fringes of the march, a sole counter-protestor, Niyak Ghorbani, held a lawful sign protesting against Hamas. This led to a confrontation with several marchers attempting to grab Ghorbani and his sign; threats were made and items were thrown at him. But it was not those threatening violence who were physically removed: it was, rather, Ghorbani who was led away by the police.

While following the police’s advice to collect placards and move away from the area, this individual violently grabbed my hand and threatened that if I returned there, they would arrest me!

Is arrest a justifiable threat for speaking the truth?! #HamasTerrorist https://t.co/UrcAZTFAeV pic.twitter.com/sYtoWA7GbB

— Niyak Ghorbani (نیاک) (@GhorbaniiNiyak) February 18, 2024

On this occasion the fault is not so much with the two police constables involved in dealing with Ghorbani. Every police officer is, after all, operating within a context set by the Met Commissioner and his senior commanders: and it appears that the Met’s leadership have decided that the ‘right to protest’ is the preeminent value that must be upheld on London’s streets.

This is despite the protestors’ rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly under Articles 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act being subject to limitations ‘as necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security and public safety’. Indeed, despite the frequent invocations made by the Met’s leadership, the Human Rights Act itself provides no explicit ‘right to protest’.

A response from a Met Police spokesperson to the incident is revealing:

‘We’ve reviewed all the bodyworn video of this 11 minute incident. While the wording on the man’s sign was an accurate reflection of the law in relation to Hamas, it was also apparent he was there to provoke a reaction from the passing crowd. The priority for officers was to de-escalate the situation to keep everyone safe and the most proportionate way to do that was to ask the man to move away from the protest.’ 

Where are the rights of ordinary Londoners in this exercise? Why are the rights of a lone individual who posed no physical risk to anyone else so readily ignored by the police? Has the Met’s approach now created a de facto right of larger, better organised, groups to overwhelm the rights of everyone else? Above all, what are the precise terms of the Met’s accommodation with the Palestine solidarity march organisers? What can be done to make its decision-making processes more transparent to Londoners?

Equality before the law is a fundamental principle of the rule of law. Everyone is subject to the same laws and entitled to be treated the same by the institutions responsible for law and order – be that the courts, prosecutors or the police.

When it comes to protestors marching across our capital city, the Met appear to be using a different benchmark. Having apparently struck a bargain with the protest organisers, it appears that the pro-Palestinian cause is frequently to be given a wide berth while the Met affords a much less tolerant hearing to anyone else.

This is the very definition of ‘Differential Policing’. In apparently adopting such an approach, have the Met’s leaders miscalculated the balance of forces at work in our capital city? That is why I am writing to the Commissioner and to the London Policing Ethics Panel – to ask them to examine the impact of the Met’s current approach on crime and policing in the rest of London and beyond.

What, then, must the Met now do to rebalance this inequity? The Met must start to prioritise the ability of ordinary citizens wishing to go about their daily lives without impediment, over the rights of the agitators who are regularly dominating many central London streets. And senior officers must be transparent about where they are receiving their advice from: too often, the Met allows itself to be captured by small groups of noisy activists, lobby-groups and ‘experts’ representing their own sectional interests.

The Met’s approach to the relentless protesting on our streets is now one of the bellwethers which tells us whether the force’s senior leadership have got heir priorities right. At the moment, many Londoners reckon they are falling well short of the gold standard.