When political tensions are running high and there are risks to public order, any responsible politician would try to reduce the pressure, take advice from police on operational matters, and publicly urge calm. The home secretary, Suella Braverman, chose the populist road in the run-up to yesterday’s march in London to protest against Israel’s military action in Gaza: to throw caution to the wind, deploy inflammatory language and hint darkly at the worst-case scenarios that might take shape.
Braverman wrote her incendiary article in the Times in the knowledge that there was a fundamental disagreement between her and the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Sir Mark Rowley, on policing strategy. She wanted yesterday’s march to be banned because it coincided with the solemnity of Armistice Day. But police powers to ban protests are – rightly – tightly proscribed by the Public Order Act: they can do so only if they believe that protesters will not comply with police restrictions and there could be serious public disorder, damage to property or disruption to the lives of the community.
