Pointless policing: the Met has admitted that it is failing to police crime while making arrests of hundreds of OAPs in Westminster
Activists from Croydon and neighbouring south London boroughs were among the hundreds of futile arrests made by the Metropolitan Police at Westminster on Saturday, acting on the orders of the Labour government to suppress free speech while real crimes were being committed around the capital.
Defiant protest: Croydon pensioner David White was among those arrested on Saturday when holding a placard in opposition to genocide
Vicars, disabled people, some of them in wheelchairs, and OAPs were among the 890 arrests made at the demonstration against the government’s ban of the campaign group Palestine Action. An estimated 1,500, according to organisers Defend Our Juries, gathered in Parliament Square, many of them holding placards that read: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”
In at least two cases of local activists, some were being arrested for a second time. The second arrests under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 may ultimately cause further action for breaching terms of bail.
Many of those arrested were removed from Parliament Square, to waiting police vans on Millbank, before being removed to police stations around London for their cases to be processed. Typically, this took around six hours, with those arrested being offered a choice of meal while being held in a police cell. Others were detained overnight on Saturday.
Among those arrested was veteran campaigner David White, a former member of the GLC. According to an eye-witness, “He refused to cooperate so was carried by police across Parliament Square to a van, evoking the loudest jeers and chants of ‘Shame!’ I heard all day.”
White was released on police bail on Saturday, and is to appear at a south London police station in November.
According to a statement issued by the Met, “All 857 individuals arrested for Terrorism Act Offences will now be investigated by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command… the Met has worked closely with the CPS to speed up the process for securing charges against people arrested for showing support for a proscribed organisation.”
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Claire Smart, who led the policing operation, said: “We have a duty to enforce the law without fear or favour. If you advertise that you are intending to commit a crime, we have no option but to respond accordingly.”
The majority of the arrests were for supporting a proscribed group under the Terrorism Act, while police said 17 were also arrested for assaults on police officers “after the protest turned violent”.
But event organisers said protesters were “peacefully defying the ban” and accused the Met Police of making “false claims” about violence.
Defend Our Juries said officers had “violently assault[ed] peaceful protesters including the elderly, in order to try and arrest over a thousand people for holding cardboard signs”. Defend Our Juries has videos of incidents in which elderly protestors are shoved to the ground by the police.
A spokesperson for the group had earlier said that “resistance to this ridiculous ban keeps on growing exponentially”.
They added that the demonstration showed the Palestine Action ban was “impossible to enforce and a preposterous waste of resources”.
In total, 857 people were arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act for showing support for Palestine Action and 33 people were arrested for other offences, including 17 for assaults on police officers. This number for assaults is significantly fewer than was being claimed by the Met on Saturday.
The Labour government proscribed Palestine Action in July, making membership of or support of the group a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Arrested: David White being interviewed by officers following his arrest under the Terrorism Act
In a statement, the Met admitted that by focusing its resources policing protests over free speech, it was failing in its duties to catch criminals. The Met said that policing the protests “required significant resource which took officers out of neighbourhoods to the detriment of the Londoners who rely on them”.
Saturday’s protest follows a major demonstration last month which saw more than 500 people arrested for displaying placards in support of Palestine Action.
The average age of those arrested at the August rally was 54, and the most arrests – 147 of them – were of people aged between 60 and 69.
Yvette Cooper, when Home Secretary, defended the proscription of Palestine Action by saying some supporters of Palestine Action “don’t know the full nature” of the group.
Cooper was moved to the Foreign Office in a cabinet reshuffle on Friday. Defend Our Juries said her “disastrous” ban “must go with her”.
Read more: Record number of old people arrested at Palestine Action demo
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Outrageous! The’s protestors are not terrorists. They’re not even criminals. They’re ordinary, articulate, well read people opposed to the widespread killing in Gaza.
Maybe Yvette Cooper or the current Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, should share “the full nature” of Palestine Action if they think that the public are ill-informed. At the moment it looks to many of us that a group who knowingly took the step to inflict criminal damage to protest the UK’s complicity in genocide have been proscribed as a terrorist organisation and we can only make educated guesses as to the reason why.
The law was introduced just days after a factory owned by Elbit Systems, an Israeli company who make drones and aircraft equipment for the IDF, was targeted by Palestine Action. No doubt the Israeli government lobbied Yvette Cooper and others to bring in this harsh measure as several Elbit sites have closed down. But, effective as Palestine Action have been, it’s hard to see where the terrorism lies in breaking windows and spraying buildings with red paint.
This is a very effective protest to undermine the State and bring it into disrepute. The Met is wailing and moaning about underfunding and having to reduce the service it provides while it has to enforce a ludricous decision that ends banging up a huge number of elderly peaceful protestors. I suppose at the end of the day we couldn’t expect much more from the wife of Ed Balls considering some of the completely inept actions he undertook while in power. None of the right whingers who appear to support this legal approach instigated by Cooper seem to comment about the huge waste of public expenditure that is created by such a draconian action, but then again the unpopularist Labour Government never seem to notice the fools they are being played for by them too.
Protest peacefully about people being murdered by Nethyahu’s death squads, with help from the British government, and you’ll be arrested by the Metropolitan Police.
Participate in murdering people by joining Nethyahu’s death squads, and the Metropolitan Police will do nothing, despite having a dossier of war crimes evidence against you.
Two-tier policing, courtesy two-faced Keir
A great day for free speech. I might go and paint a St. George’s cross on a random parked car to celebrate. Up the flag shaggers and dinghy chasers.
I guess they weren’t shagging red flags? In that case they’d be plucky, if misguided, Corbynists.
No problem with people calling out Israel for the genocidal , murdering, ethnic cleansing bunch of B*****ds that they are. There is no need to offer verbal support to any foreign groups who have agendas of their own.