Suella Braverman has attacked policing “double standards” after the head of the Metropolitan police gave the go-ahead for a pro-Palestine march on Saturday, Armistice Day.
In an article for the Times, she described the protests as an unchallenged “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”, she added.
The comments come after Rishi Sunak conceded that the pro-Palestine march will go ahead, however he insisted Scotland Yard’s decision is kept under “constant review”.
The PM called in Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley for an emergency meeting about the march yesterday.
Sir Mark has said the law would only allow him to ban the march in “extreme cases”.
In the Times, Braverman also claimed “there is a perception that senior police officers play favourites when it comes to protesters”, before claiming some current police officers have also complained about a “double standard”.
She said: “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?”.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael accused the home secretary of using her platform to appeal to her party right. “The home secretary’s desire to stoke divisions and ramp up tensions in this way is irresponsible and dangerous.”
London mayor Sadiq Khan said Braverman’s latest comments accusing the police of bias were “inaccurate, inflammatory and irresponsible”.
Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Suella Braverman is out of control”, adding: “No other home secretary of any party would ever do this.”
She said the home secretary’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”.
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