As the Guardian notes this morning:
The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has defied calls for a ban on a pro-Palestinian march through London on Armistice Day as he insisted on the independence of his force amid intense government pressure to act.
In a statement in which he acknowledged the demands for him to stop Saturday's procession, Rowley insisted there was currently insufficient intelligence that there would be a risk of serious public disorder.
This needs unpacking.
First, the law is initially on Mark Rowley's side: he has to decide if there is a threat from a march and ask for a ban.
However, the Home Office can overrule him if they think he has failed to act and a ban is required.
The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism is apparently demanding that the Home Office act and use the army to enforce their position, which appears to be a fairly extreme position.
Meanwhile, the government has had a COBRA meeting (which simply means relevant ministers met in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A) to discuss what they see as the security implications of Saturday's planned march, which goes nowhere near the Cenotaph despite Tory rhetoric claiming that it will.
So, what is really happening here?
First, a peaceful march is planned. A non-provocative route has been chosen.
Second, some who wish to cause trouble - from across the political spectrum - will undoubtedly use the occasion to do so.
Third, the police obviously think that they can contain that trouble from whoever it comes.
Fourth, the Home Secretary, whose sole goal in life would appear to be the sowing of division, thinks that this march must be banned to provoke conflict in society.
Fifth, a pathetically weak prime minister has appeased her with a COBRA meeting, seemingly wholly unnecessarily.
And so, sixth, it is highly likely that we will see the executive take a hand in decisions on routine policing matters over the next few days in a manner that suggests the end of police autonomy and the imposition of autocratic political policing to achieve party political goals.
Of all these issues, the sixth is by far the most important. The police have already got sufficient problems with being accepted as impartial by many in society. If their role becomes overtly political - as Rowley is very obviously trying to stop, and which Braverman wants - confidence in the force should disappear because it will no longer represent policing as we have known it for nearly 200 years.
We are unambiguously on the road to fascism. A big test of how far we are down that road is being played out this week with consequences that have enormous significance. It's free speech, the right to peaceful protest in the cause of peace, and the future of supposedly independent policing that are all at stake. The significance of that cannot be overstated.
I expect the march to be banned.
I expect Labour to do nothing about it.
We are in a dangerous place.
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What has been truly reprehensible is how the pro-ceasefire march is being seen as an affront to the Armistice Day ‘celebration’ – itself the day when hostilities ended!!!!
This is what I cannot get my head around at all – it makes no sense but is very, very Fascist (as your suggest).
We’re celebrating the end of something awful and wasteful but are not allowed to ask for the end of something awful and wasteful going on now at the same time!!!!
It’s as if we are being sucked into a death cult or something.
I’d love to see the ‘reasoning’ about this but suspect that it is just good old fashioned emotion filled fascism at work.
Agreed
I dont thinnk it will be banned.
As some academic said yesterday – at this late stage would make everything worse.
I have to decide whether to attend again, with a Stop the Killing placard.
Corbyn is going to be there. It’s about all those who have died in war. Why are those who have died in the war in Gaza less important than those who died in other wars?
Hope you decide to go, Andrew.
The best practical argument in favour of the march going ahead is that even if it is banned people will turn up. In that case there will be no management from the march organisers, no stewards, and the police will still have to be on the streets with no responsible organisers to speak to.
But Braverman’s ban is not about practicalities. it’s pure divisive politics.
An interesting perspective on dysfunctional governance in The Guardian suggests that Braverman’s provocations are because she wants to get sacked so she can get free to run her leadership bid. Might equally help explain why Sunak has kept this particular enemy close.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/08/tory-insiders-suggest-suella-braverman-trying-to-get-sacked
Thanks Richard, a very good analysis.
One of the things that worries me most is the number of politicians who are claiming that the march (which has police approval, or it would not be happening) WILL disrupt Armistice Day on Saturday. While I know that individual groups will observe the 2 minute silence on Saturday and will hold services or gatherings, the main events are held on Sunday, Remembrance Day. I have heard several local people (in the North East) state that ‘if they dare disrupt the Cenotaph they will pay for it’. When I point out the march will be on a different day and in a different part of London I am told that I am wrong. English media strikes again.
I agree
There is massive misinformation to create division happening here
All set up for a few agent provocateurs.
Perhaps that is why Yaxley Lennon has (I am told) been allowed back onto twitter, to marshal his knuckle-dragging troops.
The irony of banning a peace march on a weekend to remember peace is painful.
Recently, a march in Dundee was not given permission, so the person who was definitely not organising it told a randomly assembled crowd that a march certainly was not planned, and to under no circumstances walk around the town and regroup in the centre. Many people chose of their free will to do so anyway. Even if the upcoming march is eventually banned, you can’t stop people walking in the same general direction and speaking their mind.
I suppose the government could arrest people anyway, and I would hope that the government wouldn’t stoop to such overt fascism, but I would not be surprised if they did.
Of 70,000 (UK gov’t) or 100,000 (IWM) war memorials in the UK, where are the monuments to Peace? Even the empty memorial in Whitehall honours “The Glorious Dead”.
The French government has identified 126 of its parish and commune monuments that in some way recognise the need for Peace.
Those of us of a pacifist belief neither see nor hear any call for Peace in our national marking of the 11 November 1918. We certainly don’t hear the French cry of “Accursèd be War – and accursèd be the makers of War”.
Others who want Peace think that Remembrance Sunday is *just* a memorial to Peace – I would say, think again. The ceremonies are military. Those bereaved, those injured, those who mourn… where is their Peace on this day?
Even if your French is just vaguely schoolroom standard, have a go at this:
https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_aux_morts_pacifiste
[I’m highlighting just a few of those monuments on my FB page this week, with translations, if I am permitted to self-aggrandise.]
I am pleased to see so many white poppies out this year.
I have always personally treated remembrance day as a time to consider the horrors of war and why peace is desirable, not just remember the dead. As I have grown up I have come to realise this was not a universally shared attitude, which came as rather a shock.
Thanks for sharing that article. I am part French, and it is always interesting seeing how different political and social approaches have been. It’s about time we had more explicitly pacifist war monuments in the UK, or more recognition of ones that already carry messages of peace if they are not well noticed.
I am with you
I never met a grandfather who died in the wt
I never saw a reason to celebrate that
I saw it as a reason for reflection
Stoodley Pike near Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire has a tower on top devoted to peace after the Napoleon and Crimean wars.
LonM wrote: “I have always personally treated remembrance day as a time to consider the horrors of war and why peace is desirable, not just remember the dead. As I have grown up I have come to realise this was not a universally shared attitude, which came as rather a shock.”
Ever since I read ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ as a teenager I have believed it should be on the syllabus for compulsory reading for all teenagers world-wide. It won’t stop military aggression – as long as there are professional soldiers (and testosterone and short tempers) there will be conflict – but it would surely convince lots of readers of the futility and savagery of war. Over time that alone might reduce the slaughter of countless innocents.
I read it at school. It was profoundly shocking in a positive way.
i used the film All quiet on the Western Front ( the 1980s one) with year 9’s when I taught the First World War.
Today is the 5th anniversary of Patel resigning after she had had secret talks with Israeli officials when May was PM. Just a strange little snippet of information for you all.
May asked her to resign because her actions fell below the expected standards.
No chance of Sunak sacking Braverman for that reason. He’d have to sack the whole front bench.
And himself. Can a PM sack himself?
I presume a PM sacks himself by calling a general election.
Even if not banned, and however peaceful, it will be reported as disorderly.
We know that already from Sunak threatening to hold the police ‘accountable’, which is clearly a signal to his press owning friends, and from what we know of the rest of ‘our’ media.
The protest is definitely getting a lot more publicity than it would have done before Sunak and Braverman interfered. I think it might be the biggest march yet.
If The Government decides to ban the march will Rowley resign?
That might be interesting
It will be
Richard – we are at a very critical juncture.
Will you be attending the march?
No
By the weekends I am out of energy
Sorry – but that’s not how I contribute
I am pretty much on call 15 hours a day here – I can do no more
Yes that’s understandable and believe me your contribution through blog, articles, posts, academic papers, research etc is hugely appreciated and very much required in these extremely difficult and very sinister times.
I was just thinking that attending the march would give an opportunity for your work to be exposed to a whole new and receptive audience and give you a chance to reach out to them, that’s all.
Thanks
Understood
But I would not seek to be more than one more person
I am sick of hearing that our troops that died ‘made the ultimate sacrifice’. In WW2 there was conscription so they were compelled to go to war and many were killed but it does not mean that they wanted to volunteer their own deaths.