Rishi orders police crackdown on vile antisemitic mobs
RISHI Sunak has ordered a police crackdown on “appalling” and “unacceptable” antisemitic protests.
The PM said he expects forces to use new powers amid a surge in threatening protests near Parliament, MPs’ offices and council chambers.
Pro-Palestine activists beamed the “genocidal, antisemitic” phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” on to Big Ben on Wednesday night as police stood by.
MPs were debating a Gaza ceasefire motion at the time.
Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt has confirmed the authorities are investigating.
The Met Police were later accused of “normalising aggressive and offensive acts” over the slur.
Earlier this month pro-Palestinian protesters targeted the home of Tory MP Tobias Ellwood.
Mr Sunak said it was “simply unacceptable” for intimidation to threaten democracy.
In North Wales yesterday, the PM said: “Some of the scenes we have been seeing in recent months, particularly antisemitic behaviour, are appalling and unacceptable.
Intimidation
“That is why we are giving the police more powers and I expect them to use them to make sure we clamp down on all of this.”
Home Secretary James Cleverly said it was “nonsense” for protesters targeting the homes of MPs to deny they were seeking to intimidate.
He said police already have the powers to stop such protests, adding: “And we also want them to understand that they have our backing when they use those powers.”
Mr Cleverly, pictured, added: “The only thing that politicians should fear is the ballot box.”
Two serving MPs – Labour’s Jo Cox and Conservative Sir David Amess – have been murdered in the past eight years.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker who has faced calls to resign, said he went against convention
during the Gaza debate to widen discussion amid concern about intimidation towards some MPs.
Baron Walney, the Government’s adviser on political violence and disruption, said the “aggressive intimidation of MPs” by “mobs” was being “mistaken” for an “expression of democracy”.
The crossbench peer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was calling for police forces to act “uniformly in stopping” protests outside
MPs’ homes as well as other political locations.
He urged “an easier and a faster process that, where those areas are being encircled by the kind of angry aggressive protests that have that implied sense of threat, as we are seeing, to give the police the ability to disperse them more quickly, which is clearly not happening”.
Mr Cleverly said politicians should be able to make decisions “based on their judgment” and “not based on fear of reprisals”.
The Home Secretary said he would not “impinge on operational decisions” by the police when asked if they should have stopped the words being projected on to Parliament.
But he said the Government “completely rejected” the sentiment behind the “deeply offensive words”.
The Metropolitan Police said: “While there are scenarios where chanting or using these words could be unlawful, its use in a wider public protest setting, such as [this week], is not a criminal offence.”
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Today programme protests at MPs’ homes were “a disgrace” and “intimidation”.