Slogans mean arrests

Although only in London and Manchester, for now

Protestors who target Jews in London or Manchester by displaying or chanting slogans such as “globalise the intifada” can expect to be arrested in future, the cities’ police chiefs said yesterday.

The change of policy was announced in a joint statement by the Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police Sir Stephen Watson. So far as is known, it does not apply to other police areas.

The two chief officers said they had been consistently advised by the Crown Prosecution Service that many of the phrases causing fear in Jewish communities do not meet prosecution thresholds. But said Rowley and Watson, “words and chants used, especially in protests, matter and have real-world consequences”.

Antisemitic hate crime had surged, protests had intensified and online abuse had grown since 2023, they said. “Now, in the escalating threat context, we will recalibrate to be more assertive.

They continued:

We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as “globalise the intifada” and those using it at future protest or in a targeted way should expect the Met and GMP to take action. Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed — words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests.

Frontline officers will be briefed on this enhanced approach. We will also use powers under the Public Order Act, including conditions around London synagogues during services.

The chief officers said that current laws were inadequate and welcomed the review of public order and hate crime legislation by the former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald of River Glaven KC. Announcing the review last month in response to the fatal terrorist attack at a Manchester synagogue during Yom Kippur services on 2 October, the home secretary Shabana Mahmood said Macdonald would examine police powers to manage protests and offences of stirring up hatred.

The police statement began by “acknowledging the horrific terrorist attack in Australia, where Jews were deliberately targeted whilst enjoying the Hanukkah celebrations”.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism, a volunteer-led charity, responded with a robust statement. Its spokesman said:

More than two years and more than 10 dead Jews later, police chiefs may finally be waking up. After two years of repeatedly excusing genocidal rhetoric and failing to grasp how their inaction was fuelling extremism in this country and ignoring the Islamist threat to our civilisation, they have finally realised that words and chants have consequences.

The line between the hate marches and the antisemitic murders has become impossible to ignore, even by police chiefs who have had their heads in the sand. The prospect of arrests for this one chant at marches is a start, but we would have expected it over two years ago. It remains to be seen if it can even be enforced at this point, after police have allowed extremism to run amok for so long undeterred.

If police chiefs think that this is a bone to throw to a Jewish community in mourning, they are mistaken. Their legacy is record levels of antisemitism. There is a great deal of catching up to do if we are going to restore law and order in this country. We pray that more Jews don’t need to die on their watch before they do.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said the police decision amounted a breach of its supporters’ free speech rights. Arrests were made at a protest in London last night.

Sir Stephen Watson QPM

Speaking last night at an event organised by the think tank Policy Exchange, the Manchester chief constable said there were people trying to weaponise free speech. Without identifying them, Watson referred to “a group of people who are increasingly showing themselves out to be the enemies of liberalism and our democratic tradition”.

He argued that all the organs of the state needed to tackle a “significant threat, not just to our Jewish communities, but to our country”. Referring to the policing of protest, he said that “as the context turns, so too must we recalibrate”.

He continued:

Even six months ago, chanting “globalise the intifada” — it’s questionable whether you would find yourself being held up by the police. What I can tell you is that if you do that this weekend, my officers will arrest you. And that is a straightforward reflection of the fact that the dynamic is changing.

I asked Watson why he was apparently going against advice his force had received from the Crown Prosecution Service.

He said:

The CPS are making determinations on their best guess as to where the law might sit. I just think that if we are too reticent, despite this continuum that we’ve talked about, we can’t test the proposition. We can’t test whether… it doesn’t meet the threshold… And therefore it seems to me that that proposition must be tested — and it must be tested rigorously.

I have to say to you that [with phrases] like “river to the sea”, which is more subjective, we’ve always said in Manchester you can say “river to the sea” in the midst of the protest. But say outside a synagogue and you’re going to get locked up.

The BBC published a retraction yesterday after struggling to explain what was the term “intifada” meant in this context.