Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Prime Minister Keir Starmer are seeking to weaponise the situation to ramp up the attack on the Palestine movement, with talk of “repeated protests” being a drain on police resources, the Stop the War Coalition has said.
In response to the home secretary’s announcement of plans to crack down on pro-Palestine protests, Stop the War convenor Lindsey German said:
“Stop the War is alarmed that the UK government intends to introduce greater restrictions on the right to protest in the wake of the appalling attack at the Manchester synagogue.
“It defies logic for the Home Secretary to suggest that there should be limits placed on how often people can protest against a genocide that has been waged on the people of Gaza for two years.
“Marches organised by the Palestine coalition, which Stop the War is a part of, have been attended by hundreds of thousands of people, and we believe they are representative of majority public opinion in this country which wants to see an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people.
“We condemn the attack on the Manchester synagogue, just as we condemn recent attacks on mosques and hotels accommodating asylum seekers.
“We wholeheartedly reject the implication that our peaceful marches are in any way responsible for the attack.
“Stop the War has never conflated Israel’s illegal actions with the British Jewish community and will continue to vociferously oppose any attempt to do so.
“Our movement is multi-ethnic, peaceful and opposed to all forms of racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.
“Thousands of Jewish people have taken part in our demonstrations, many as part of an organised block, and will continue to do so.
“The Palestine coalition has already faced more severe restrictions on our right to assemble and protest than any other protest group, and we oppose any attempts by the government to intensify this.
“The right to protest is fundamental in any democratic society and must be defended – we will be working with others to do this in the coming months.
“We call on all our supporters to join the Palestine coalition on the streets of London next Saturday (11 October) for what will be the thirty-second national demonstration for Palestine.
“This will be another massive mobilisation of support for the Palestinians, but also an expression of our absolute commitment to defend the right to protest.”