‘These are hate marches’: Home secretary hits out at pro-Palestinian protests as UK terror threat level remains ‘substantial’

Published

2 years ago

October 30, 2023

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Home Secretary Suella Braverman has described street demonstrations in support of Palestinians as “hate marches”.

It comes as five people have been charged after a pro-Palestinian protest took place in London on Saturday – the second weekend in a row during which marches have been held.

When questioned about the demonstrations, after an emergency COBRA meeting chaired by Rishi Sunak, Ms Braverman said: “To my mind there is only one way to describe those marches: they are hate marches.

“What we’ve seen over the last few weekends, we’ve seen now tens of thousands of people take to the streets following the massacre of Jewish people, the single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map.”

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She said police are concerned there are a “large number of bad actors who are deliberately operating beneath the criminal threshold in a way which you or I or the vast majority of the British people would consider to be utterly odious”.

In response, Labour backbencher, Azal Khan, said the home secretary’s labelling of the marches was “disingenuous, dangerous and deeply contradictory to the right we all hold to protest”.

The number of people gathering in the capital in protest at the Israel-Hamas war over the last two weekends has totalled about 100,000.

On Saturday, the force arrested a total of nine people – two on suspicion of assaulting police officers and seven for alleged public order offences – as Gaza is besieged by Israel and coming under aerial bombardment.

Two other women were held on suspicion of inciting racial hatred on Sunday morning following an incident in Trafalgar Square.

UK terror threat level not being hiked

Following discussions on Monday, the terror threat level in the UK is not yet being raised.

Ms Braverman said the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) is keeping the threat level from international terrorism at “substantial”.

The decision was made despite Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warning on Sunday that terrorism is being “accelerated” by events in the Middle East, as he raised concerns about “state threats from Iran”.

Anger was directed towards Sir Mark’s police force after it said it had not identified any offences from a clip of a protest in which a member of the crowd could be heard chanting the word “jihad”.

The chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has also been used.

Some interpret it as a call of support for the Palestinian people, and others claim it is a demand for the dismantling of Israel, with the Anti-Defamation League saying it is an antisemitic slogan.

Ms Braverman has also previously branded the chant as antisemitic and urged police to take a “zero tolerance approach”, while Downing Street didn’t go quite as far, saying it was “a deeply offensive chant to many” on Monday.

Sir Mark added that while the UK has robust laws in dealing with hate crime, there is a “gap” when it comes to extremism.

Ms Braverman said that if there was a need for the law to change, she “would not hesitate to act”.

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Heidi Alexander says ‘fairness’ will be government’s ‘guiding principle’ when it comes to taxes at next budget

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12 hours ago

July 13, 2025

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Heidi Alexander says 'fairness' will be government's 'guiding principle' when it comes to taxes at next budget

Another hint that tax rises are coming in this autumn’s budget has been given by a senior minister.

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was asked if Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet had discussed hiking taxes in the wake of the government’s failed welfare reforms, which were shot down by their own MPs.

Trevor Phillips asked specifically if tax rises were discussed among the cabinet last week – including on an away day on Friday.

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Tax increases were not discussed “directly”, Ms Alexander said, but ministers were “cognisant” of the challenges facing them.

Asked what this means, Ms Alexander added: “I think your viewers would be surprised if we didn’t recognise that at the budget, the chancellor will need to look at the OBR forecast that is given to her and will make decisions in line with the fiscal rules that she has set out.

“We made a commitment in our manifesto not to be putting up taxes on people on modest incomes, working people. We have stuck to that.”

Ms Alexander said she wouldn’t comment directly on taxes and the budget at this point, adding: “So, the chancellor will set her budget. I’m not going to sit in a TV studio today and speculate on what the contents of that budget might be.

“When it comes to taxation, fairness is going to be our guiding principle.”

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Afterwards, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Phillips: “That sounds to me like a barely disguised reference to tax rises coming in the autumn.”

He then went on to repeat the Conservative attack lines that Labour are “crashing the economy”.

Mr Philp then attacked the prime minister as “weak” for being unable to get his welfare reforms through the Commons.

Discussions about potential tax rises have come to the fore after the government had to gut its welfare reforms.

Sir Keir had wanted to change Personal Independence Payments (PIP), but a large Labour rebellion forced him to axe the changes.

With the savings from these proposed changes – around £5bn – already worked into the government’s sums, they will now need to find the money somewhere else.

The general belief is that this will take the form of tax rises, rather than spending cuts, with more money needed for military spending commitments, as well as other areas of priority for the government, such as the NHS.