Arrests on suspicion of inciting racial hatred at a London pro-Palestine march held on the third anniversary of October 7, after the Metropolitan Police asked organisers to move the date
LONDON - Five people were arrested at a pro-Palestine protest on the anniversary of October 7, on suspicion of inciting racial hatred, after the demonstrations went ahead despite requests to move the date. What's the deal with holding it on the day. Not the week. The day. The day the murders happened, three years on, with the Prime Minister's statement about the dead, the rise in antisemitism, and the attack on the Heaton Park synagogue still in the same morning. You can believe in the cause and still own a calendar. The calendar had other dates. The other dates did not offer the same photographs.
Why the Met Police Asked for the October 7 Anniversary March to Move
The Met wrote to four London universities before the day, asking students to hold the march on another date, according to ITV News London. The march, organised under the name University of London Coalition, was due to go from King's College London on the Strand to UCL in Holborn at midday. The force said the threshold for asking the Home Secretary to ban it had not been met, so it set conditions on timing and route instead, a decision GB News described as police saying they were powerless. A request is a request. It turned out the organisers had a different sort of calendar.
Universities UK's chief executive, Vivienne Stern, said students and staff should be mindful of the anniversary and agreed the demonstrations ought to have moved, as the PA report on the day noted. That is not a controversial sentence. It is the sort of sentence you would expect to hear in a staff room. It still did not get the date changed.
Incitement to Racial Hatred and What the Chant Sheet Has to Prove
Counter-protesters came, because this is the arrangement. Two groups, one street, police who would like to be at a burglary. Tear gas is a French hobby. Ours is a cordon and a clipboard. Incitement means words, which means the chant sheet is about to meet a more formal readership than it planned. Chant sheets do not enjoy being Exhibit B. Exhibit B asks who typed this, and whether anyone read it before it was laminated.
The offence sits in Part III of the Public Order Act 1986, which covers stirring up racial hatred, and the Crown Prosecution Service's guidance is clear that intent or likelihood is the test, not whether somebody's uncle found it rude. Words on a sheet, words on a megaphone, words on a placard: they all get read aloud eventually, usually by a barrister, usually in a voice that makes them sound worse. The Met says it has made more than 17,000 hate crime arrests since October 2023, and that policing the protests of the Palestine Coalition and related groups has cost £26.6 million. Those are large numbers for what began as a disagreement about a ceasefire.
The Met also expected a counter-protest from Stop the Hate and others, which is why the day was always going to be policed as two events pointed at each other. Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman, who leads public order policing, said the demonstration was being held on the third anniversary of the attack, a sentence that sounds like a plain statement of fact and works as the whole argument. There is no neutral way to say it. The force knew exactly what the date meant and had to police it anyway, with the officers it had, in a week when the same officers were also needed for everything else the capital does.
Burnham's Statement, the Calendar and the Tell
Burnham's statement said we stand with Britain's Jewish community, abuse will not be tolerated, and a two-state peace is still the policy. All of that can be true on the morning a march is told the morning is the problem. Protest is a right and hatred is not. That is the sentence. The sentence does not choose the date. The organisers do. The date is the tell.
The Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation attack on Yom Kippur 2025, in which two people were killed, is not a historical footnote in this city. Community groups such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Community Security Trust have spent the last year handing out safety advice, which is not what a normal anniversary looks like. It is the background against which every one of these marches is read, however it is meant.
Two Versions of the Same Street
A Jewish Londoner who was not at the march, because the march comes to you, said the anniversary is not a prop. A marcher said the anniversary is the point. Both are describing the same street. The street would like its bus stop back. The five will get a process longer than the chant. There is always a next date. Some of them fall when the country is trying to be quiet. Those lead the news. Quiet lost the date. https://prat.uk/?p=51275
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