Met police tried to block Britain’s March Against Antisemitism from BBC’s vicinity
Only after concerted efforts from the Campaign Against Antisemitism did the Met give way, Jewish News understands - though they still prevented the march from starting at the BBC
The Metropolitan Police initially tried to block Sunday’s march against antisemitism from using a route passing by the BBC, Jewish News understands, with the Met subsequently allowing the route but with a further attempt to prevent the march from stopping in the vicinity of the national broadcaster.
According to correspondence shared with Jewish News, the police initially offered the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is organising Britain’s March Against Antisemitism, a variety of different routes, none of which went near Portland Place, where the BBC’s London headquarters are situated.
The CAA made clear that the march was called in the wake of deeply disturbing scenes from Glastonbury broadcast by the BBC, stating that “preventing us from demonstrating at the BBC frustrates the purpose of our protest”. After the organisation brought legal representatives to its meetings, the police decided to allow the march in the vicinity of the broadcaster. However, according to correspondence sent by CAA to the police, a meeting with the police to discuss the march itself saw the police describe the possibility of the procession pausing outside the BBC for 15 minutes for speeches to be made as a “red line”, and that the Met would likely impose a condition to prohibit such a pause in the procession.
“You said that the basis for imposing such a condition was that local businesses had raised concerns about disruption caused by repeated protests in that area”, said the letter from CAA’s chair, Gideon Falter, to a senior police officer.
“You did not identify which local businesses had raised such concerns. As far as we can see, the only businesses in the immediate vicinity of the proposed 15-minute pause outside the BBC are the BBC itself, All Souls church and the Langham Hotel.
“We find it difficult to understand how the Police have reached the conclusion that a march of several thousand people past those businesses would not require the imposition of a condition, whereas a 15-minute pause in that location would trigger the need for a condition. We would be grateful if you could please set out the basis for the Police’s ‘red line’ regarding the proposed 15-minute pause.”
Jewish News understands that the police have subsequently permitted the 15-minute pause in the procession to take place. CAA has told Jewish News that it understands that neither All Souls Church or the Langham Hotel had registered any protest in relation to the march.
The police have maintained their refusal to allow Britain’s March Against Antisemitism to start outside the BBC itself, however – a decision that CAA have taken issue with, given that a planned anti-Israel march led by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) on 17 September has been widely advertised as starting outside the BBC itself. The police response to CAA’s query about the PSC march starting point, as seen by Jewish News, has been that they “are aware of the event planned on the 17 September but are yet to discuss arrangements with the organisers…furthermore, the necessity assessments for conditions are rarely made several weeks in advance, especially when there is an event planned by the proposed organisers in the intervening period which may influence the risk assessment for the future event.”
Speaking to Jewish News, Falter said: “We submitted the route to the Met two months before our march, during which time they permitted a march attended by over 100,000 people to gather at the BBC on Portland Place. But when it came to our march, just as we were supposed to announce the starting location with two weeks to go, senior Met officers tried to ban us from going anywhere near the BBC, even though — or perhaps because — protesting against the constant BBC scandals is part of the purpose of our march.
“All of a sudden, after nearly two years of Palestine marches that often started at the BBC, with frequent displays of criminal behaviour, the Met decided that our orderly march against antisemitism would be too disruptive to even pass by the BBC. We had to bring our in-house lawyers and external lawyers into meetings, and eventually the Met relented, but by then we hadn’t been able to publicise the starting location for over a week and they still refused to let us gather at the BBC, which is where the next Palestine march, taking place 10 days after ours, is due to assemble.
“The Met’s claims that this was about avoiding disruption to ‘the business community’ are bare-faced attempts to frustrate the purpose of our protest. The only businesses near the BBC are the BBC itself, a hotel and a church, and we had made strenuous preparations to ensure that we would not cause disruption to the hotel or the church — all of our marches in the past have been extremely well behaved.”
The Met police has been contacted for comment.
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