The UK’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman has this week written an article in the Times newspaper accusing the Metropolitan police of double standards and bias in how protests are dealt with. After Met Commissioner Mark Rowley followed the law laid down by her Government and allowed a pro-Palestine march to commence on today, Saturday 11 November, Armistice Day, Braverman pandered to the hard-right fringes of her party, calling such anti-war demonstrations “mobs”, and attacking Rowley for doing his job.
Braverman has recently called pro-Palestine demonstrations “hate marches”, and compared them to the sectarian demonstrations this country experienced during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and an “assertion of primacy by certain groups”.
For a serving Home Secretary to so openly criticise the police as they independently and lawfully conduct their work is not just unprecedented, it flies in the face of everything the Home Secretary is meant to stand for. The independence of the police has always been a sacred concept in British politics, but it seems nothing is sacred to this Home Secretary.
The main issue people like Braverman have with pro-Palestine marches going ahead on 11 November is, of course, that it is happening on Armistice Day, the day when Brits and others around the world fall silent to remember and honour the heroic fallen, who gave everything in service of their country.
The fear is that those marching in these protests, mainly left-wingers and peace activists, will desecrate statues and monuments in London, as they did during the Black Lives Matter protests during the pandemic. Concerns mainly rest around the Cenotaph on Whitehall, the main monument to British war dead of the First and Second World Wars.
This is despite the fact that the pro-Palestine marches start at Marble Arch, about 2 miles from the Cenotaph, and end at the US Embassy, again about 2 miles from the Cenotaph. The organisers of the march have stated explicitly that it is not their intention to disrupt remembrance proceedings, and there are no plans to go anywhere near the Cenotaph.
Of course this has been entirely ignored by Braverman, who released her contemptable article anyway. Whether she was aware of these facts or not doesn’t even matter at this point. She wouldn’t have been concerned with the facts in any case.
I struggle to understand how a peaceful demonstration calling for a ceasefire in a war that, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health administration (pinch of salt required), has now killed more than 10,000 civilians, is inappropriate on Armistice Day. Not only is 11 November about honouring fallen servicemen and women, but celebrating the end of two of the most destructive conflicts the world has known.
Palestine is experiencing one of the most destructive conflicts in its history as I sit here writing this article. We in Britain and across the world celebrate the guns falling silent on 11 November 1918 on Armistice Day. The pro-Palestine marches are calling for the guns to fall silent once again. How is that wrong? How is that disrespectful? Any anti-war demonstration is entirely appropriate, and I would argue morally right, to go ahead on Armistice Day.
As with any protest, there have been elements of these marches that have taken things way too far. Chants of “from the River to the Sea”, and “Jihad”, among other slogans, have been heard at these marches. Divisive rhetoric of this kind is unjustified and has no place in peaceful protest, not to mention it de-values the message those who are serious about peace are trying to get across.
There was a breakaway group from the main pro-Palestine march who engaged in violence, shooting fireworks at police and some chanting antisemitic slogans. Over 300,000 protesters came out to call for a ceasefire today, of which about 150 broke away to attack police. Incidents like this are, of course, deplorable and profoundly counter-productive, the exact opposite way to go about protesting the massacres happening in Gaza.
It also throws red meat to hounds like Braverman, who latch onto such language and action to condemn the entire movement. If this same logic was applied to the Conservative Party, every single Tory MP should be suspended from the party for being expense-fiddling, hair-sniffing, bum-grabbing sexual weirdos.
However, the worst of the violence seen today was from far-right counter-protesters, including the fascist, Islamophobic English Defence League, who gathered in London to “defend” the Cenotaph. Police had orders to keep them away from remembrance proceedings, so they clashed, leading to about 92 arrests at the time of writing.
They obviously also didn’t get the message that the pro-Palestine demonstration had no intention of reaching the Cenotaph, which was already adequately defended by the police, not to mention the members of the military in attendance. Ironically, the only disruption caused to remembrance proceedings at the Cenotaph today was by these morons, who disturbed the 2 minute silence at 11am with chants, drunken loutishness, and general anti-social behaviour.
The EDL and others didn’t come to London to demonstrate peacefully. They came for a scrap, and when they couldn’t get one with the pro-Palestine marchers (as they didn’t go near the Cenotaph, as they said they wouldn’t), they picked one with the police instead.
I don’t need to denounce the EDL to you, dear reader, as you probably already know the type of knuckle-dragging, gammon-chewing thugs they are. As their name suggests, they fetishize the concept of “defending” English culture and history, without fully understanding it, as an excuse to be openly bigoted against anyone who isn’t what they are; white, straight, Christian, bald, etc.
Of all the ironies of today’s counter-protest, the worst is that these shit-for-brains racists attacked police officers, people who actually defend Britain every day, often risking their own safety, as was seen today as well. 9 officers were injured defending the Cenotaph from the mob of street-drinking hooligans, confiscating weapons including knives from them.
It’s worth remembering why these people were on the streets today; Suella Braverman. It was she who called the integrity of the police into question, and she who accused pro-Palestine marches of hatefulness in their entirety. The fascist fuckwits were effectively acting on her orders.
I’m pretty sure she isn’t as sure of her political position as her article makes out. She has been noted for espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories in the past, including that of cultural Marxism. If you’re unfamiliar with this term, it’s a debunked conspiracy theory that blames left-wing intellectuals, mainly Jewish, for steering western culture towards a more liberal consensus. It’s an incredibly racist and antisemitic lie that the more venomous aspects of the right-wing use to justify our now more inclusive and progressive society.
Braverman has referenced this lie on many occasions during her time in politics, outing her current hard-line pro-Israel stance for what it is; political opportunism. She will jump onto the most convenient political bandwagon that the moment provides to further her own career, which at the current moment, with the modern Tory party becoming ever more vile and fringy, is ignorance to the suffering and death of tens of thousands of Gazan children and innocent civilians, thinly-veiled Islamophobia, and pandering to openly racist groups like the EDL.
Her Times article comes after a slew of other repulsive comments she has made recently; she has said that Britain is facing an “invasion” and a “hurricane” of illegal migration, threatened to sanction companies who give tents to the homeless, and called homelessness a “lifestyle choice”.
That last one is particularly insulting to me. I work with homeless people every day in my job, and not one of them has chosen to be living on a friend’s sofa, or in a council-provided hotel room, or in the doorway of a shop. You would think a constituency MP like Braverman would have a better idea about what causes homelessness. She probably knows she’s talking utter shit when she says things like this, but doesn’t care. She does it to appease the acidic Tory membership, and to make people like you and me angry.
It’s her intention to use her platform of bigotry and alternative facts to stand for Conservative leader after the next general election. If current trends continue, the Tories will lose badly. I fear for what will happen to that party in opposition with someone like Braverman at the helm. I may be a Labour member, but I still believe in the Conservative Party, and it would be a disaster for it to slip further into far-right hateful conspiracy. Britain needs effective opposition to keep the governing party in check, and a political entrepreneur like Braverman would steal that away to satisfy her own ego.
Braverman’s nastiness has presented a dilemma for Rishi Sunak. If her sacks her, he risks her becoming even more outspoken from the backbenches, potentially joining forces with crybaby Nadine Dorries to derail his leadership; if she can say what she’s been saying from one of the 4 Great Offices of State, imagine what she’ll say once she’s outside Government.
If he doesn’t sack her, he shows weakness. He cannot condone her comments, and every single Government minister who has been asked about what she has said have distanced themselves from her. If she stays and continues her behaviour, Sunak’s ability to control his cabinet will appear non-existent.
The Tories are becoming visibly disunited. The body language between Braverman and Sunak during the King’s Speech debate in the Commons chamber was painful to watch; they physically distanced themselves from each other as Keir Starmer ripped into both of them for Braverman’s bile about the homeless, despite the fact they were sat next to each other. This marks the only time a Tory PM has actually observed social distancing.
It’s always nice for me to watch the Conservatives implode, but I fear for the further hate Braverman will stir up if Sunak allows her to continue spouting her uniquely odious brand of verbal manure. The violence on London’s streets we saw today is an example of the hurt, physical hurt her words can inflict. To call her a disgrace is an understatement, but with the direction the Tory grassroots are heading in, its looking ever more probable that she’ll be in charge of one of the most successful parties in the history of politics after the next election.
stay safe
/e