LAST UPDATE | 9 Nov 2023

UK HOME SECRETARY Suella Braverman has used Northern Ireland as a point of comparison as she characterised pro-Palestinian demonstrations planned for the UK on Armistice Day as “hate marches”.

Writing in The Times, Braverman said “hate marchers” intend to use the Armistice Day protest as a “show of strength”.

The Home Secretary also characterised alleged reports that organisers of Saturday’s march were linked to Hamas as “disturbingly reminiscent of Ulster”.

Braverman said: “I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza.

“They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups — particularly Islamists — of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland.

“Also disturbingly reminiscent of Ulster are the reports that some of Saturday’s march group organisers have links to terrorist groups, including Hamas.”

Braverman accused police of “double standards” and “playing favourites” with protesters as the planned march looks set to go ahead. 

“Right-wing and nationalist protesters who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behaviour are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law?” she wrote.

“I have spoken to serving and former police officers who have noted this double standard.

“Football fans are even more vocal about the tough way they are policed as compared to politically connected minority groups favoured by the left.

“It may be that senior officers are more concerned with how much flak they are likely to get than whether this perceived unfairness alienates the majority. The government has a duty to take a broader view.”

Braverman’s article is her latest high-profile intervention, with ministers in recent days seeking to distance themselves from some of her comments.

She has described the protests as “hate marches” and also claimed some people were homeless as a “lifestyle choice”.

Met Police meeting

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met with Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley for an emergency meeting yesterday about the march planned in London, saying he would hold the Scotland Yard boss “accountable” if there was trouble.

Rowley has faced pressure from senior Tories to ban Saturday’s march in London, but has said the law would only allow him to do so only in “extreme cases”.

Following their talks, Sunak said the planned protest on Armistice Day is “not just disrespectful but offends our heartfelt gratitude to the memory of those who gave so much so that we may live in freedom and peace today” and “part of that freedom is the right to peacefully protest”.

Sunak’s meeting with Rowley had appeared to ease some of the tension between the Government and the Met, before Braverman’s broadside. 

Sunak said police had confirmed the march will not be near the Cenotaph on Whitehall and timings will not conflict with remembrance events.

But the Prime Minister added: “There remains the risk of those who seek to divide society using this weekend as a platform to do so.

“That is what I discussed with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in our meeting.

“The commissioner has committed to keep the Met Police’s posture under constant review based on the latest intelligence about the nature of the protests.”

There have been fears that breakaway groups from the main march and counter-protests by far-right groups could lead to violence.

Reaction

Responding to the article this evening, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the remarks made by Braverman were “extraordinary”.

In an interview with Sky News this evening, McDonald said Braverman is “perhaps in particular, is at sea and ignorant of Irish affairs”.

“And also, how at sea and the distance between the Tory government and such a huge number of people in England and right across Britain, so I thought the remarks were extraordinary,” she said.

Asked if she could see what Braverman’s “endgame is”, McDonald said: “I don’t know is the honest answer, but it strikes me that the government in London is really at this stage, a bit of a past master at gratuitous insult.

“If the idea is simply to create division, or to arouse controversy, or to seek attention, well, then she has achieved those objectives,” McDonald added.

Labour MP Jess Philips said: “Braverman makes our country less safe, not satisfied with inflaming tensions in London she thought she’d also light a match under Northern Ireland relations. No right thinking Prime Minister would stand by her let alone approve her copy.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Suella Braverman is out of control.”

Writing on social media, she said Braverman’s article “is a highly irresponsible, dangerous attempt to undermine respect for police at a sensitive time, to rip up operational independence & to inflame community tensions”.

“No other Home Secretary of any party would ever do this.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said Braverman’s words were “inaccurate, inflammatory and irresponsible”.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: “Suella Braverman is running a Conservative party leadership campaign, not the Home Office.

“The Home Secretary’s desire to stoke divisions and ramp up tensions in this way is irresponsible and dangerous.”

SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has said that Braverman’s comments comparing armistice day marches to parading in Northern Ireland display an “aggressive ignorance” of the conditions faced by civilians in Gaza, the role of the Met police and the complex history and traditions of marching and protest in the North.

“The Home Secretary’s comments in an article in The Times today are so far removed from reality that it is impossible to come to any determination other than she is deliberately stoking division to bolster her own brand among the Conservative Party’s right wing,” he said.

“It’s honestly like reading a pound shop Enoch Powell piece.”

Eastwood said the only appropriate action now is her removal from office, “but given the systemic weakness of this government, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she remained”. 

The planned route for the London march goes from Hyde Park – about a mile from the war memorial in Whitehall – to the US embassy in Vauxhall, south of the Thames.

The Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall, which will be attended by the Britain’s king and queen and other members of the royal family, will take place on Saturday.

Remembrance Sunday events will take place at the Cenotaph in Westminster the following day.

In an indication of the challenges faced by police, the Met said that since the Hamas massacre in Israel on 7 October, there have been 188 arrests involving hate crimes or linked to protests in London.

Commander Paul Trevers said: “This is a challenging time for communities in London.

“We continue to see a very concerning rise in both antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crime. This is absolutely unacceptable.”

Includes reporting by Press Association and Muiris O’Cearbhaill