Arrests at large protests, including those organised by pro-Palestine and environmental groups, will probably be made more quickly in the future, the Metropolitan police’s assistant commissioner has said. Matt Twist also suggested that the force had not got “everything right” in handling demonstrations over the past year.
The capital has seen a number of large-scale protests since October last year, some of which have drawn hundreds of thousands of people to central London. Among them were demonstrations held by Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which is calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Twist spoke about policing protests in an interview with the rightwing thinktank Policy Exchange in May, before far-right riots erupted across the country after the Southport attacks in July. His comments have now been released alongside a new report by the thinktank. Twist, who is responsible for protest and public order policing across London, said: “When we look back at the policing of protests over the last eight months, we know we didn’t get everything right – particularly in the early stages in October.
“On occasion we did not move quickly to make arrests … We are now much more focused on identifying reasonable grounds for arrest, acting where needed, and then investigating, so in these circumstances it’s very likely arrests would be made more quickly now.”
Twist said that while the number of demonstrators had fallen significantly – from a peak of about 300,000 people at pro-Palestinian events every fortnight last November to about 5,000 to 10,000 people every third weekend by May – the protests still represented a “very real policing challenge”.
On the topic of “two-tier” policing, a theory falsely claiming that police treat white people taking part in disorder more harshly than minority groups, Twist said: “In public order policing, we are neutral as to the cause that is being protested. We base policing tactics on the threat, harm and risk based on the information and intelligence available to us.
“In that sense, there is no such thing as two-tier or differential policing – there are in fact an infinite number of tiers of policing, depending on the threat, harm and risk.”
Twist’s comments were released in conjunction with a new report published by Policy Exchange, which is co-founded by Michael Gove. It estimates that Palestine-related protests in London have cost the Met £42.9m. In January, shortly after the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in the capital had taken place, the Met said it had spend £26.5m on protests related to the conflict in Gaza.
As part of the report, a nationwide poll of more than 1,500 adults was conducted, which found that more than two-thirds of respondents would drop plans to travel with small children (71%) or an elderly or mobility-impaired friend or relative (69%) if a major protest was taking place in a nearby city or town centre.
Of those surveyed, 62% said they would drop plans to visit a tourist attraction, while 58% would abandon plans to go shopping.
Pro-Palestine protests in the UK have been largely peaceful. In February, the independent media platform openDemocracy reported that 36 people who attended pro-Palestine rallies last year had been charged with an offence, and that the arrest rate at these marches was lower than at the most recent Glastonbury music festival.
Former Met commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe QPM endorsed the report. He said: “In recent years, the policing of protest has become increasingly challenging for police commanders and officers on the ground.
“As this timely and detailed Policy Exchange report shows, the government must rebalance the legal regime in favour of ordinary members of the public going about their daily lives.”
