The cenotaph and poppy sellers

I live in a small town in West Yorkshire. I work in the neighbouring city which has high levels of deprivation and a city known for riots.

There was a demonstration and collective prayer, organised by the Council of Mosques, a couple of Saturday's ago and it attracted thousands of people, the invitation was a call to all Muslims, people of faith and of no faith to come peacefully in solidarity with the people of Gaza. There was no violence and no arrests. An offence rate of 0%.

There was a smaller but similar demonstration in my hometown and again, no trouble. The local conservative MP tried to whip up some false outrage about some wording on a sign that he'd seen on a photo (he didn't attend) and he was quickly dismissed by locals of all ethnicities and faiths who'd attended, he said a particular sign used a particular phrase but it didn't. The MP seemed a bit disappointed tbh. There was no violence and no arrests. An offence rate of 0%.

There have been three demonstrations in London and according to Reuters there have been approx 100,000 people at each demonstration. Reuters: 'Since Oct. 7, London police have made 188 arrests for hate crimes, including 98 for suspected antisemitic offences, 21 for Islamophobic offences and 12 for "faith hate crimes". The rest were for public order offences, many of which were racially aggravated.' An offence rate of 0.1%.

There is a legal test that states 'intelligence needs to show that a threat of serious disorder likely' before police can shut down demonstrations. There is no evidence that these demonstrations are causing or likely to cause serious disorder so what is the motivation for calling for the police commissioner to Downing Street to assure Sunak of the safety of the event?

armistice
/ˈɑːmɪstɪs/
noun
an agreement made by opposing sides in a war to stop fighting for a certain time; a truce.

I don't know how may times you need to hear it @PurpleChrayne, people are not marching to support terrorism. The are marching for a ceasefire. To make their voices heard. It is definitely appropriate. There are 100s of Jewish participating but that obviously doesn't fit your pro israel narrative.

Let us not forget how intimidated the Gazan people must feel at the moment, with over 10k dead and 2.3m without food, water and medicine and most displaced without shelter. We must speak up for them.

https://new.thecradle.co/articles/76-percent-of-uk-citizens-want-ceasefire-in-gaza-poll

@Kendodd 76% of Brits want a ceasefire according to this article.

That may be the case but Jewish people won’t all be feeling the same way

And many have talked about feeling intimidated and other valid feelings

I believe most UK people want a ceasefire.

Exactly.

There are many Jewish people ON the marches!

I wholeheartedly support a ceasefire and freeing the hostages but also agree with the above. If I were the organisers I'd encourage everyone marching to wear a massive great poppy to try to counter the right wing 'hate marches' view. Make poppies really prominent on every news agency photo of the march and see how the Daily Mail spin it.

"Let alone how frightening it must be for Jewish Londoners."... let us not forget that thousands of Jewish people are protesting side by side against this horrific war.

Exactly @PurpleChrayne. So frustrating. The majority of these posters don’t have to actually face up to this intimidatory bullshit shutting down their streets, filling up tubes and chanting slogans in public transport on our way to work. They’ve got no idea how intimidating it is for ordinary people getting on with their lives. Let alone how frightening it must be for Jewish Londoners.

“Peaceful” - are these posters having a laugh or just deliberately blind to the chanting of terrorist slogans, intimidation of anyone not joining them.

hello, Home Secretary!

The sheer naivety on this forum astounds me.

Marching for peace... Have you seen the footage from the previous "peace" marches?

A pro-terrorism march on a day set aside to commemorate those lost in other wars against terror and fascism. Hardly appropriate.

Suella Braverman and the government were clearly informed days ago that the March would go nowhere near the cenotaph and that it was a march for a ceasefire. Suella is using this to try and whip up a frenzy with the lowest denominator in this country, as she saw how well that worked for Boris et al. and she thinks that's how she can up her popularity.

The answer is likely something not very pleasant

Exactly. I am wondering if our Home Secretary is hiding on this thread deliberately inflaming and fanning the flames of hatred from some of these comments, LOL.

What you think of as public sentiment will depend on what you look at

You live in the countries Capital, where the government sits so people will always congregate in Capital cities for protests and marches on a whole raft of issues, no idea why you seem to be so surprised by this. London is a very big place it can be easily avoided. Same happens in Dublin where I live I just avoid it when I know there are protests happening, we get enough warning....

MissAtomicBomb1 · Today 07:41

I think it could be viewed as disrespectful to hold the march on a weekend where Britain is remembering its own dead.
Doesn't really help the cause with the wider public either.
My opinion, don't expect everyone to share it but like it or not, many do outside of the London/twitter/social media bubble.”

Question Time was in Llandudno yesterday, some distance from the “bubble”. Fiona Bruce asked if anyone agreed with Mrs. Braverman. 1 person put his hand up.

I live in the NW. Everyone I know supports the marches.

Well good for you that you don’t have to be intimidated on the tube @queenofarles. have a biscuit.

AdrianaLaCerva and this fellow Londoner is saying I have no issues with Marches , I’ve seen far more troubles in the Euro semi finals,
and you shouldn’t worry , I never take the tube

Suella Braverman had family serving in the IDF, she has skin in this game.
She's deliberately trying to rile up the far left and the far right so that she can say. See I was right...I know the majority of the people marching are marching for peace and nothing else.
The far right have already gathered groups of men to protest that day too so I imagine they will also be purposely trying to incite violence ans clashes as that's what they love.

I've seen a few reports now of vox pops at some of the Palestine marches and it's surprising how many people don't really know why they're there. Some are there protesting against colonialism, the Royal family, racism etc. It just all seems to have blended into one sort of 'rage about everything'.

Protests/marches of any kind inevitably draw anarchists and trouble makers too and given that Remembrance Day parades usually have a high proportion of veterans and elderly people, I think I'd be worried about policing it too.

…also please stay out of our tube system @queenofarles - we’d like to get to work and go about our lives without loads of thugs on a jolly day out in London chanting terrorist slogans in the carriages.