SIR Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is between a rock and a hard place in regard to the pro-Palestine march tomorrow in the capital. The march itself will attract a huge number of people who are clearly apologists for Hamas, the terrorist group who kickstarted the Israel-Gaza war with bestial violence more than a month ago. That so many wish to demonstrate their complete disrespect for a sacred weekend in the British calendar by parading through the streets in support of an Islamist conflict backed by Iran, one of this country’s enemies, is glaring evidence that multiculturalism has failed. If Rowley was to ban the event, it would take place anyway, or there would be a concerted attempt to muster a large demonstration. This would mean a direct confrontation between police and the proscribed event, which would almost certainly lead to violence. The spectacle of thousands of Hamas apologists fighting with police on the Armistice weekend would be an even larger public relations disaster for the militant credo of Diversity (as multiculturalism has been rebranded).
For her part Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, has created a rumpus merely by pointing out something that is obviously true: that the police go easy on demonstrations for causes approved of by the left. Although the Black Lives Matter demonstration in the summer of 2020 turned violent, some officers ‘took the knee’ to appease the crowds, a blatantly political gesture dreamed up by a far left, bigoted organisation. Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil protests have been handled with kid gloves. Officers have turned a deaf ear to calls for jihad on recent Palestine marches when it could easily be argued in court that this is incitement to violence. I believe in the liberty to protest and so would not have had the jihad-yellers arrested. But I also know that when the police, or individual police officers, do not approve of a demonstration they can behave very differently. I have experienced this myself. In the mid Noughties I attended a freedom of speech march from Trafalgar Square. It was just after the Danish cartoons controversy. Before the rally to hear various speakers, a friend and I met in a pub near by. Police entered and wandered around with video cameras filming drinkers and scowling and staring. The implicit message was that they would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone they felt was out of line. It was obvious they had mistaken the demonstration for some sort of far right gathering, even though Peter Tatchell, the left-wing, gay rights champion, was speaking about freedom of expression. It struck me then how closely the police can sometimes resemble the hooligans they are supposed to be curbing.
When Britain officially left the EU on January 31, 2020, there was a large celebratory gathering in Parliament Square with Nigel Farage, Brexit campaigner and chief bogeyman for the left-wing middle classes, in attendance. I was standing on its fringes drinking a can of Jack Daniel’s and Coke when the can was violently snatched out of my hand by a police sergeant. He then stood in front of me and poured the drink on to the ground with a grin that could only be called nasty. He stared at me, daring me to say something. I merely smiled at back him. I knew that if I entered into debate I would have been in the back of a van in a trice.
So, they can do it when they want to. But when it comes to Palestine – one of the biggest ‘badge issues’ of the British left – they don’t want to do anything to annoy demonstrators. If tomorrow’s march had been proposed by the Countryside Alliance or Antivax protesters they would have been sent away with fleas in their ears.
Observant people know about these double standards; they are another shameful aspect to the official classes’ creation of a pecking order of minority causes, which is turning Britain into a rabble of factional disputes and making the country increasingly ungovernable. Many in the police and public sector have been trained by ‘the left-wing freemasonry’ of Common Purpose, and the softly-softly approach to the Palestine marches has all the hallmarks of their ‘leadership’ style. I would be interested to know if Rowley has attended their courses.
Of course many among the army of Marxoid fellow travellers in Whitehall, the professions and broadcasting will be secretly thrilled if the Armistice ceremonies are disrupted by an Islamist march: revolutionaries love to debauch tradition. They just would prefer it not to turn ugly as that would damage the brand of Diversity in the cold light of live television, and it is the stick of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion that they intend to beat us all with in perpetuity while gaining power in the process.
As we remember the fallen during this sombre weekend, it will be worth reflecting on what the country they gave their lives for has become.
