The London Palestinian solidarity protest scheduled for Saturday, November 11, is set to go ahead after all. After ten days of intense controversy, the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) didn't give in. Chief Constable Mark Rowley, a specialist in counter-terrorism, refused to ban the event despite pressure from the Conservative government, which considered its timing to coincide with Remembrance Sunday, the commemoration of the armistice of the First World War, to be "disrespectful."

This unprecedented tug-of-war between the police and the executive says a lot about the independence of police forces in the UK and their liberal approach to demonstrations, but also about the tendency to use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a political tool.

It all began with a provocative statement by Suella Braverman, the home secretary, who has become notorious for making inflammatory comments to attract media attention, there being little doubt in Westminster about her ambition to one day replace Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservative Party. On Monday, October 30, this politician, who is married to a British Jew, described the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have taken place every Saturday in London since the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7 as "hate marches." On Wednesday, November 8, she doubled down in an opinion column in the Times, accusing the police of being more lenient with left-wing demonstrations than right-wing ones.

Bringing together up to 100,000 people on October 21 and tens of thousands on October 28, the London marches resulted in 188 arrests according to the police, but were for the most part peaceful, with demonstrators holding up "Free Palestine" signs or calling for "a ceasefire." Among those arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred were two women wearing stickers showing the image of paragliders used by Hamas to infiltrate Israel, and some carrying black flags calling for jihad. The police kept a low profile, deploying mounted officers only where tensions were most likely to emerge, namely near Downing Street.

The protest organizers, including PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign), played by the rules, avoiding passing under the windows of the Israeli embassy or pitching a tent opposite the Cenotaph, the monument to the dead of the two world wars on Whitehall, as they had done at the October 14 demonstration.

Braverman nevertheless called for a more heavy-handed approach, arguing that the slogan "From the river to the Sea, Palestine must be free" chanted by demonstrators was "a staple of antisemitic discourse" as it was "widely understood as a demand for the destruction of Israel." Ade Adelekan, an assistant to Chief Commissioner Rowley, replied that the slogan has been heard "frequently" at pro-Palestine "demonstrations for many years", and that while "we are well aware of the strength of feeling in relation to it", it would only lead to arrests if uttered in a specific context – namely an incitement of hatred against Israel or support for Hamas.

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