The office of Home Secretary is fundamental to matters of law enforcement, national security and public order. Yet Suella Braverman is using her authority to play culture war with the most incendiary issue at the most explosive of times.
This has come to a head with plans for a pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day. Braverman has wrongly called such protests “hate marches” and suggested they are being used as a front by Islamic extremists.
The appalling celebration of paragliders who murdered Israeli civilians, and chants of “jihad”, by groups in the marches must be dealt with. The actions of those individuals do not render the entire protest a “hate march”, nor do they justify the Home Secretary’s comments, which risk exacerbating what is already a highly charged moment.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has been placed in an invidious position. He must both follow and enforce the law, all while managing the vast strain on his resources. The principle of operational independence, like that of consent, lies at the heart of policing in Britain. The Met must be left to police the protest.
Vile antisemitism
“Our gravest concerns lie in what the future might hold.” Jewish news outlets across the globe have signed an open letter on antisemitism, following the enormous rise in anti-Jewish hate attacks.
The eruption of antisemitic offences in London and around the world is evidence of a malignance across society, something that long predated the latest round of violence in the Middle East. In the month after October 7, when the Hamas terror attack on Israel took place, the Community Security Trust recorded at least 1,124 antisemitic acts in Britain, with incidents rising by more than 500 per cent. The letter notes that “the level of fear among our readers is like nothing in memory”.
It is not antisemitic to support Palestinian rights. But threatening and assaulting Jews, or defacing their schools thousands of miles from Israel does not aid a single Gazan. Instead, it indicates that it is not war that the perpetrators object to, but the mere existence of Jewish people.
Win for the Standard
The Standard picked up Campaign of the Year for our School Hunger investigation at the 2023 Society of Editors Media Freedom Awards. The campaign, in which we partnered with The Independent and The Food Foundation, revealed the distressing circumstances affecting 800,000 children in England who live in poverty but are ineligible for free school meals.
The judges commended the campaign for its “tangible results” with the Mayor agreeing to fund free school meals for all primary school pupils. Congratulations to our Campaigns Editor David Cohen.
