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The campaigner at the centre of an antisemitism row with the Metropolitan Police has criticised “outrageous” comments made by a former senior officer who said he would have considered arresting him for assault.

Gideon Falter, the chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, spoke to Sky News’s Kay Burley at Breakfast after footage showed a police officer preventing him from crossing a road near a pro-Palestinian march in London because he was “openly Jewish”.

The officer also told Mr Falter, who was wearing a kippah skull cap near the march on Saturday 13 April, that he was “worried about the reaction to your presence”.

Mr Falter has called on Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley to resign and accused the force of “victim-blaming” after the encounter.

Sky News understands Sir Mark will meet the home secretary today.

He also met a delegation from the Jewish community to discuss their concerns alongside other senior officers.

Following the meeting, the Community Security Trust said the Met representatives repeated their apologies and agreed to “consult more closely” with the Jewish community, including senior Jewish police officers, “to ensure greater cultural sensitivity in future communications”.

The statement said the groups would continue their dialogue with the police regarding the “cumulative impact of the repeated anti-Israel protests”.

“We urge the police and government to work together to find ways to limit this impact through reducing the number of protests, moving them to less disruptive locations and acting firmly and consistently whenever offences are committed by people on the demonstrations,” they added.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he has confidence in Sir Mark but that he needs to rebuild “confidence and trust” with the Jewish community.

Retired senior officer defends Met’s response

Meanwhile, former Met Chief Superintendent Dal Babu said he has seen the full 13-minute video of the incident on Sky News and saw a “different encounter” to the one Mr Falter had described.

Mr Babu said that if he had been policing the march he would have considered arresting the campaigner for “assault on a police officer and a breach of the peace”.

Mr Falter said in response: “I think it’s a pretty outrageous thing to say, I think it’s a pretty outrageous thing to be giving any credence to.

“I was Jewish. I was crossing the street”.

Mr Falter added: “I did not assault a police officer. How on Earth can anybody say that? I’m quite clearly in the video trying to continue to walk where I was going.”

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New video of ‘openly Jewish’ row

Mr Babu later reaffirmed his view of the encounter and said the video shows Mr Falter pushing policing officers “out of the way” which amounts to “common assault”.

He also defended the police’s handling of the situation and said: “I think the police dealt with it and tried to be as sensitive as possible.

“I think the police officer was offering to take Mr Falter and his group to a place where they could cross more appropriately. Mr Falter was refusing to move and wanted to cross at that particular place against the march.”

Campaigner will walk near march again

The force apologised on Friday for using the term “openly Jewish”, but then had to apologise for their apology after suggesting opponents of pro-Palestinian marches “must know that their presence is provocative”.

The Met said in its initial apology that its aim was to keep people safe.

Mr Falter has said he is planning to go for a walk in the vicinity of a pro-Palestinian march again on Saturday 27 April, adding that he “should be allowed to do that”.

Earlier on the show, black journalist Seyi Rhodes said that although he wouldn’t want to, he would avoid a far-right march if he knew one was being held in a certain place in London.

Mr Falter said in response: “It is outrageous to put to me that the correct response of Jewish people to these marches, where we have seen such brazen antisemitism the whole time is to just stay away from them.”

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‘Time for Mark Rowley to go’

Falter insists he was not there to ‘counter-protest’

Ben Jamal, director of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, has said Mr Falter is wrong to have suggested he was “innocently going for a walk”.

“The reality was he came to the march with an entourage of four to five people and a film crew and sought to break through the stewards.

“He physically pushes himself past the police in order to walk in front of the march… he was trying to provoke a confrontation. That’s what happened.”

Mr Jamal accused the Campaign Against Antisemitism of “using the tactic of coming to the marches to provoke an incident so that they can say there are scenes of disorder and therefore the marches cannot go ahead”.

Mr Falter said he found Mr Jamal’s remarks to be “absolutely astonishing”.

He added: “I was not going to try and provoke something… what exactly does he think I’m trying to provoke by being ‘openly Jewish’?

“I was not there to counter-protest. I was not there with film crews or anything of the sort. I was simply Jewish in the vicinity of these marches.”

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5 countries where crypto is (surprisingly) tax-free in 2025

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5 countries where crypto is (surprisingly) tax-free in 2025

5 countries where crypto is (surprisingly) tax-free in 2025

Looking to live tax-free with crypto in 2025? These five countries, including the Cayman Islands, UAE and Germany, still offer legal, zero-tax treatment for cryptocurrencies.

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Children with special needs will ‘always’ have ‘legal right’ to support, education secretary says

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Children with special needs will 'always' have 'legal right' to support, education secretary says

The education secretary has said children with special needs will “always” have a legal right to additional support as she sought to quell a looming row over potential cuts.

The government is facing a potential repeat of the debacle over welfare reform due to suggestions it could scrap tailored plans for children and young people with special needs in the classroom.

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Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Bridget Phillipson failed to rule out abolishing education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – legally-binding plans to ensure children and young people receive bespoke support in either mainstream or specialist schools.

Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said parents’ anxiety was “through the roof” following reports over the weekend that EHCPs could be scrapped.

She said parents “need and deserve answers” and asked: “Can she confirm that no parent or child will have their right to support reduced, replaced or removed as a result of her planned changes?”

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Sophy’s thought on whether to scrap EHCPs

Ms Phillipson said SEND provision was a “serious and complex area” and that the government’s plans would be set out in a white paper that would be published later in the year.

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“I would say to all parents of children with SEND, there is no responsibility I take more seriously than our responsibility to some of the most vulnerable children in our country,” she said.

“We will ensure, as a government, that children get better access to more support, strengthened support, with a much sharper focus on early intervention.”

ECHPs are drawn up by local councils and are available to children and young people aged up to 25 who need more support than is provided by the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) budget.

They identify educational, health and social needs and set out the additional support to meet those needs.

In total, there were 638,745 EHCPs in place in January 2025 – up 10.8% on the same point last year.

‘Rebel ready’

One Labour MP said they were concerned the government risked making the “same mistakes” over ECHPs as it did with the row over welfare, when it was eventually forced into a humiliating climbdown in the face of opposition by Labour MPs.

“The political risk is much higher even than with welfare, and I’m worried it’s being driven by a need to save money which it shouldn’t be,” they told Sky News.

“Some colleagues are rebel ready.”

The MP said the government should be “charting a transition from where we are now to where we need to be”, adding: “That may well be a future without ECHPs, because there is mainstream capacity – but that cannot be a removal of current provision.”

Later in the debate, Ms Phillipson said children with special educational needs and disabilities would “always” have a “legal right” to additional support as she accused a Conservative MP of attempting to “scare” parents.

“The guiding principle of any reform to the SEND system that we will set out will be about better support for children, strengthened support for children and improved support for children, both inside and outside of special schools,” she said.

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“Improved inclusivity in mainstream schools, more specialist provision in mainstream schools, and absolutely drawing on the expertise of the specialist sector in creating the places where we need them, there will always be a legal right … to the additional support… that children with SEND need.”

Her words were echoed by schools minister Catherine McKinnell, who also did not rule out changing ECHPs.

She told the Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge that the government was “focused on reforming the whole system”.

“Children and families have been left in a system where they’ve had to fight for their child’s education, and that has to change,” she said.

She added that EHCPs have not necessarily “fixed the situation” for some children – but for others it’s “really important”.

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Government to ban ‘appalling’ non-disclosure agreements that silence victims of abuse at work

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Government to ban 'appalling' non-disclosure agreements that silence victims of abuse at work

Victims will no longer have to “suffer in silence”, the government has said, as it pledges to ban non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) designed to silence staff who’ve suffered harassment or discrimination.

Accusers of Harvey Weinstein, the former film producer and convicted sex offender, are among many in recent years who had to breach such agreements in order to speak out.

Labour has suggested an extra section in the Employment Rights Bill that would void NDAs that are intended to stop employees going public about harassment or discrimination.

The government said this would allow victims to come forward about their situation rather than remain “stuck in unwanted situations, through fear or desperation”.

Zelda Perkins, former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, led the calls for wrongful NDAs to be banned. Pic: Reuters
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Zelda Perkins, former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, led the calls for wrongful NDAs to be banned. Pic: Reuters

Zelda Perkins, Weinstein’s former assistant and founder of Can’t Buy My Silence UK, said the changes would mark a “huge milestone” in combatting the “abuse of power”.

She added: “This victory belongs to the people who broke their NDAs, who risked everything to speak the truth when they were told they couldn’t. Without their courage, none of this would be happening.”

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said the government had “heard the calls from victims of harassment and discrimination” and was taking action to prevent people from having to “suffer in silence”.

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Weinstein found guilty of sex crime in retrial

An NDA is a broad term that describes any agreement that restricts what a signatory can say about something and was originally intended to protect commercially sensitive information.

Currently, a business can take an employee to court and seek compensation if they think a NDA has been broken – even if that person is a victim or witness of harassment or discrimination.

“Many high profile cases” have revealed NDAs are being manipulated to prevent people “speaking out about horrific experiences in the workplace”, the government said.

Announcing the amendments, employment minister Justin Madders said: “The misuse of NDAs to silence victims of harassment or discrimination is an appalling practice that this government has been determined to end.”

The bill is currently in the House of Lords, where it will be debated on 14 July, before going on to be discussed by MPs as well.

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