Speaking at a meeting of the London Policing Board on Tuesday, Sir Mark said: “In this context of polarised public debate, I do think sometimes we are the first people who are able to be labelled simultaneously woke and fascists and that comes across in some of the criticism.
“I fully understand the strength of feeling but to suggest that we are not where the law permits as the law allows, policing robustly, is not accurate.”
Last month, there was criticism of the fact that pro-Palestinian protesters had been able to beam the controversial slogan “from the river to the sea” on Big Ben, with police officers failing to act.
But Sir Mark said it was not correct to suggest the police had stood by while people had broken the law.
He said: “At each of the major protests where the majority have been peaceful we have seen wrongdoing, and we have acted, arresting at most of these big events between ten and 30 people for a range of public order and terrorism offences.”
Hundreds of arrests at marches
He explained there had been around 360 arrests in total, of which 90 were far-Right protesters.
Sir Mark told board members: “We have to police the law as it is not as others would wish it to be. The threshold for banning marches is very, very high, and is based solely on an unmanageable threat of violence.
“We are already imposing severe conditions on timings, locations and routes of marches, including being very sensitive to religious premises and conditioning protesters to avoid disruption to services and others.”
He went on: “In the 1970s, Sir Robert Mark, who had some similar challenges to the ones we are wrestling with today when he was commissioner, said, ‘The police are the anvil on which society beats out the problems and abrasions of social inequality, racial prejudice, weak laws and ineffective legislation.
“It feels like today sometimes we are a bit of an anvil for these issues to be beaten out on.”
