More than two months after a peaceful protest on the road where shadow cabinet member Steve Reed lives, two retired trades union activists have been called in for questioning
Someone who lives on the same Upper Norwood street where Labour MP Steve Reed has his home has reported two old-aged pensioners to the police for staging a peaceful protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Yes, seriously…
‘You can’t hide, We charge you with genocide’: pro-peace protestors outside MP Steve Reed’s CLP meeting
Croydon trade union activists Marian Carty and David White must attend a south London police station next week for interview – although the exact details of what “crime” they are supposed to have committed and who has made the allegations have not been revealed to them.
Labour sources strongly suspect that if Reed himself did not file the complaint, then he may have got a pliant neighbour to submit a report to the Met.
“It’s just Reed’s style,” said a source last night. “Snide, underhand and bullying,” was their opinion of their MP.
“He’s got form for doing this, using his position to call in the police when he does not want to be accountable to his constituents.”
The news of Carty and White’s appointment with the Old Bill comes a day after environmental activist Greta Thunberg and four others were acquitted at Westminster Magistrates’ Court of all charges following their removal from a peaceful protest in London late last year. Their arrest was deemed unlawful by the judge.
Judge Laws said the protest was “throughout peaceful, civilised and non-violent” and he criticised evidence provided by the prosecution.
London march: tens of thousands are expected in central London today
Today is expected to see the latest mass demonstration in central London against the on-going obliteration of Gaza, where the Israeli Defence Force has killed thousands of civilians. The march comes one week since the International Court of Justice ordered the Israel government to stop any acts of genocide.
Yet in Croydon, despite multiple requests over the past four months, MP Reed, a member of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet, has stubbornly refused to meet with concerned constituents, including Muslim community leaders. He has failed even to bother to reply to letters from Muslim leaders.
Reed, together with the borough’s other Labour MP, Sarah Jones, were among the Starmer loyalists who refused to vote in favour of a Gaza ceasefire when the matter came before the House of Commons last year.
This week, Reed was at a meeting of his new constituency, Streatham and Croydon North, where he has been installed as Labour’s parliamentary candidate without any reselection process.
The meeting, held at the Phoenix Centre in Upper Norwood, drew a modest number of pro-peace protestors. According to sources inside the hall, the chanting from outside nearly drowned out the speakers, forcing the chair to promise to bring a microphone to the next meeting.
Labour members arriving for the meeting had been greeted by placards, Palestinian flags and chants of:
“Steve Reed, You Can’t Hide, We Charge You with Genocide.”
The acts of protest continued inside the meeting, too.
One member walked out in disgust after being refused an opportunity to question his MP on Labour’s policy on the International Court of Justice’s interim judgement on genocide charges against Israel.
Another was applauded when he called for reversal of Labour’s position and for an arms embargo to be imposed on Israel.
“Many thousands of Jewish people in the UK are deeply distressed and appalled about what is being done by Israel, and they are treated with contempt by the Labour Party,” the member told the meeting.
“On this basis, Labour is not only racist, anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic, but also antisemitic.”
In the pending possible police cases against pensioners Carty and White, it is thought that the complaint brought against them relates to a protest held on a residential street in Upper Norwood in mid-November – before Parliament passed urgent measures to make it an illegal act to hold a protest on a street where an MP lives.
The word on the streets: a sticker in Blairite MP Reed’s constituency
The protest on November 18 was in all respects peaceful, and no arrests were made at that time.
According to Carty and White, Reed “has shown a dismissive attitude to accountability, particularly in light of the extent of the slaughter” in Gaza.
According to a statement issued by the pair, they “will attend the police interviews accompanied by their solicitor and fully expect to hear that they have no case to answer”.
They told Inside Croydon: “Should the matter be pursued by the police, Ms Carty and Mr White are prepared to mount a campaign to raise awareness of the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the increasing authoritarianism in relation to lawful and peaceful protest.”
They failed to mention whether they were considering submitting a counter-claim, against Reed or whoever submitted the complaint, for wasting valuable police time.
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