EXCLUSIVE: Zionist-supporting Labour front-bencher claimed he feared for his life when a small group of grannies and mums staged a protest calling for an end of the killing in Gaza. By STEVEN DOWNES
Smug: Steve Reed claimed in his complaint ‘the people outside our house were terrorist supporters and could therefore have bricks or Molotov cocktails’
Two pensioners from Croydon who were called in for interview by the police following a complaint filed by Steve Reed are to face no further action, the Met has confirmed.
Marian Carty and David White were part of a peaceful demonstration last November calling for a ceasefire and an end to the slaughter of innocent civilians in Gaza. The protest was staged in public areas on the Upper Norwood street where Reed has a home.
Reed is the Labour front-bench spokesman on the environment, the MP for Croydon North from 2012 to 2024 who is standing in the General Election as his party’s candidate for Streatham and Croydon North. Reed has received significant funding from Israel supporters.
Reed attracted much criticism last year from his Muslim constituents when he ignored their requests to meet them to discuss the situation in Gaza following the October 7 attacks by Hamas on an Israeli music festival.
Carty and White were at the protest shortly after an SNP ceasefire motion was put to Parliament. A group of constituents, appalled that Reed failed to support the call to end the killing, joined the demonstration. They included mothers, grandmothers and pensioners, along with two small children. A legal observer was present, who reported that the demonstration was entirely peaceful and interactions with neighbours were calm and respectful.
Pro-Palestine protesters: David White and Marian Carty in a recent appearance on a political podcast. Steve Reed complained that they were in some way dangerous
Reed reported the matter to the Metropolitan Police two weeks after the protest. Shortly before this, Marian Carty received notice of her suspension from the Labour Party.
White is a former Labour councillor on the old GLC and a long-standing party official who had already been expelled by Labour after a repeated trawl through his social media posts.
Reed, in his witness statement to the Labour Party disputes team, made what the pensioners described as “some ludicrous yet sinister assertions”.
These included: “We could see the Palestinian flags which are associated in many people’s minds with the Hamas terrorist group, so we had good reason to fear that the people outside our house were terrorist supporters and could therefore have bricks or Molotov cocktails with them…”
Carty told Inside Croydon: “The Palestinian flags we had at the demonstration are the flags of the Palestinian people. They are not the flags of Hamas.
“The idea that we would throw Molotov cocktails at Mr Reed’s house is plainly ridiculous.”
And White said: “We are relieved that our prosecutions are not proceeding, but the matter should never have got this far. There was never a viable case under the Public Order Acts or anything else against us.
Call for purge: in 2020, Reed expressed his position
“The police investigation was huge waste of public money. In our view it was designed to try to silence peaceful protest.
“For someone who holds a senior position in the Labour Party, and who might well be a Cabinet Minister if Labour wins the General Election, Mr Reed has shown poor judgement. He would be better advised to listen to his constituents’ concerns, rather than dismiss them and falsely accuse them of ‘violent and murderous intent’ as asserted in his witness statement.
“By refusing to support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to UK arms sales to Israel, Mr Reed is in our view complicit in Israel’s war crimes. Attempts to silence those who call this out will not hide this.”
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