Give police more powers amid 10-fold rise in antisemitic attacks, says UK adviser

John Woodcock: ‘The marches are clearly a factor in that but that cumulative build-up of threat to a community cannot currently easily, neatly, be taken into account by police.’ Photograph: Jeff Gilbert/Rex/Shutterstock

The UK government’s adviser on political violence and disruption has said he will recommend giving police stronger powers to prevent demonstrations that intimidate the Jewish community after weeks of successive, largely peaceful pro-Palestinian marches.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the independent peer and former Labour MP John Woodcock said: “The problem you have seen over recent weeks is the police grappling with the public order regulations and deciding in this last week, for example, that they didn’t think there was sufficient probability of serious public disorder to be able to ban the march.