Pro-Palestine campaigners believe that tougher action may be taken to control demonstrations amid concerns about the growing threat to British Jews after the Golders Green stabbing.
Michael Coulston, a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) organiser, believes it will be used as “an attack on friendly and safe marches” and to clamp down on political protest.
He said: “I think the authorities will always try to use any excuse to try and prevent protest and to prevent any kind of dissent.”
Mr Coulston was speaking at a demonstration on Saturday billed as a “March to put Palestine on the ballot in the local elections”, involving around 50 protesters who took part in a protest through Lewisham, south-east London.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said protesters have a responsibility to call out those chanting “globalise the intifada” at Gaza marches.
He has suggested he wanted to see “tougher action” against people using certain phrases at these demonstrations, but stopped short of agreeing with calls for a ban on the marches.
His latest intervention comes as Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has said 300 extra police officers are needed across London as he warned of a growing “pandemic” of antisemitism in the UK.
It comes after two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green, north London, on Wednesday.
The attack, which has been declared a terror incident by police, is the latest in a string of violent incidents targeting Jewish people.
Mr Coulston said: “I think the language thing is a complete red herring.
“I have never heard language being used by marchers which was particularly offensive.
“I think the authorities always want to prevent protest. They always want to prevent any kind of disagreement.”
Charity worker Una Kularatmam, 73, who attended the march, said: “I think it would be really sad and tragic if marches were stopped in some way.
“It is good to be among like-minded people who care and are trying to make a difference.
“These are peaceful marches, not hate marches.”
Ben Woodward, chairman of the Lewisham Stop the War Coalition, said: “I think that thousands of people being arrested for holding signs saying ‘I Support Palestine Action’ makes a mockery of our democracy and our right to free expression.
“I think that the real cause of tension and sense of powerlessness is the brutality that is going on in the world.
“I think the idea that people chanting is contributing to it – I just do not believe it.”
Hilary Knight, 62, of Catford, south-east London, dismissed criticism of the language used at marches and the scale of the event as “something that is being whipped up” by the media and the authorities.
She said she had been on 10 national marches and described them as “peaceful and well organised”.
Ms Knight added: “Hand on heart, I have never heard any antisemitic, racist or hate speech at all.
“I know that there are various phrases that can be interpreted as antisemitic, but I think that is an interpretation and is not the way they are meant.”
She said: “I have been on marches where there has been a quite substantial presence of Jewish people who have marched, quite happily, in solidarity with us and shown no sign of being threatened.
“I am very sad for the Jewish community that they may be feeling more threatened because that narrative exists but there is nothing that I can see for it.”
Asked if she thought there may be a clampdown on further protests, Beckenham-based set designer Rana Fadavi, 33, said “I fear that absolutely from the state”.
Ms Fadavi said she expects “it is going to be tougher” to organise them and there could be a clampdown that is more “repressive” but there is a need for the protests to continue.
She said: “I think there should be more marches happening.
“The Government has not been listening despite millions of people protesting.
“I think it is completely justified that these marches should be happening and they should grow.”
Ms Fadavi said the marches have been “a source to have hope again” and “these movements of solidarity are really what keeps us hopeful”.
The Defend Our Juries campaign group responded to Sir Keir’s comments with a post on X , stating: “End the genocide, not our freedoms to oppose it.”
In a response posted on X, the Stop the War Coalition said: “There is no threat whatsoever to the Jewish community from these marches and in fact they are attended by thousands of Jewish people often in a Jewish bloc and are completely safe – which they wouldn’t be if these were antisemitic marches.”
Sir Mark told LBC: “Protests can’t be banned, Parliament has made it clear, but they can’t be.
“What we can do, we can restrict how a march takes place and, in the most extreme circumstances – and it’s a very high bar – we can restrict it to a static event alone, and we’re looking at all possibilities and what’s appropriate in this circumstance.”
Essa Suleiman, 45, appeared in court on Friday charged with attempted murder over the Golders Green attack.
