Pro-Palestinian protests ‘un-British’ after terror attack

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has told the BBC she was “disappointed” pro-Palestinian protests went ahead on Thursday after the terror attack that killed two men outside a synagogue in Manchester.

The home secretary also called for demonstrators to “step back” from plans to hold marches in coming days.

“I do think that carrying on in this way does feel un-British, it feels wrong,” she said of protests planned for this week.

Demonstrators in central London protesting the Israeli navy halting a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza clashed with police officers outside of Downing Street on Thursday evening.

Large crowds carrying Palestinian flags and placards could be seen on Whitehall into the evening.

The Metropolitan Police said 40 people had been arrested. Six of those detained were arrested for assaults on police officers.

“It is important to draw a line between what is happening in the Middle East and what is happening at home,” Mahmood told BBC Breakfast on Friday.

“I would say to people who are planning to go on a protest is to just take a step back for a minute, and imagine if you had lost a loved one to a terror attack in this country,” she said.

There were “strong” powers to protect the freedom to protest, she said, but they could be overridden on the advice of the police.

“I can take my lead from the police, if they were to tell me there was an inability to respond and to police the protests, then there are powers that are available,” she explained.

The UK’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that many members of the Jewish community wondered why marches in support of Palestine Action had been allowed to take place.

Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July. At various protests since then, hundreds have been arrested for showing support for the group, which has won permission to challenge the ban.

“Some of them contain outright antisemitism, outright support for Hamas. Not every single person, however there is so much of this, which certainly is dangerous to many within our society,” Sir Ephraim said.

“You cannot separate the words on our streets, the actions of people in this way, and what inevitably results, which was yesterday’s terrorist attack.”

He also called on the government “yet again”, to “get a grip on these demonstrations, they are dangerous”.