UK police are to be given greater powers to restrict protests as a minister said repeated large-scale pro-Palestinian demonstrations had caused “considerable fear” for the Jewish community.
The government initiative follows Thursday’s deadly knife and car-ramming attack on a synagogue in the northwestern city of Manchester.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration in central London went ahead on Saturday despite pleas from Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the capital’s Metropolitan Police to delay it.
The government said police would be authorised to consider the “cumulative impact” of protests when deciding to impose limits on protesters.
“The right to protest is a fundamental freedom in our country. However, this freedom must be balanced with the freedom of their neighbours to live their lives without fear,” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in a statement.
Over 1,000 people took part in Saturday’s protest in London’s Trafalgar Square, with nearly 500 people arrested for showing support for the banned Palestine Action campaign group.
Defend our Juries, a group that organises protests in support of Palestine Action, called the new measures an “extraordinary new affront to democracy” in a statement published Sunday.
It also announced that it would “escalate” its campaign to lift the ban ahead of a legal challenge in the High Court in November.
Organisers previously rejected calls not to gather, saying they “stood in solidarity” with the Jewish community over the Manchester attack, but that “cancelling peaceful protests lets terror win”.
A day earlier, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was booed at a vigil for the Jewish victims of the synagogue attack.
“Large, repeated protests can leave sections of our country, particularly religious communities, feeling unsafe, intimidated and scared to leave their homes,” Mahmood said.
“This has been particularly evident in relation to the considerable fear within the Jewish community.”
Questioned by a BBC television interviewer about the Jewish community’s repeated warnings about the dangers they face, Mahmood admitted she was “very worried about the state of community relations in our country”.
The Home Secretary added, speaking to Times Radio, that there was a broad “problem of a rise not only in antisemitism but in other forms of hatred as well”.
“There are clearly malign and dark forces running amok across our country,” she said.
Police shot dead assailant Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old UK citizen of Syrian descent, within minutes of the alarm being raised on Thursday’s synagogue attack.
One person was killed in the attack outside the synagogue in north Manchester. Another died after suffering a fatal gunshot, likely from armed officers as they tackled Al-Shamie.
Three people who were seriously injured remain in hospital, including one who is also believed to have been accidentally hit by police fire.
Counter terrorism police have been granted more time to detain four people arrested on suspicion of terrorism-linked offences over the incident.
The UK has seen repeated pro-Palestinian demonstrations since the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 and Israel’s retaliatory action in Gaza in which tens of thousands have died.
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