Government to Seek Discussion After Met Police Said ‘Jihad’ Chant Was Lawful

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London, to appear on the BBC One current affairs programme "Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg" on Oct. 22, 2023. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

The government intends to talk to the Metropolitan Police, a minister said on Sunday after the force said a demonstrator chanting “Jihad” in London didn’t break the law.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick told broadcasters on Sunday morning that while it’s up to the Met to make operational decisions, the chant during an Islamist rally on Saturday was “completely reprehensible” and appears to be “an incitement to terrorist violence” to him.

In footage circulated online, a protester could be heard chanting “Jihad, Jihad” after a speaker asked “What is the solution to liberate people in the concentration camp of Palestine?” during a rally near the Egyptian embassy organised by the revolutionary Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The rally was held at the same time when tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were marching in central London amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Protesters during a pro-Palestine march organised by Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Campaign in central London on Oct. 21, 2023. Stefan Rousseau/PA

Met officers, including “counter terrorism officers with specialist language skills and subject expertise,” who were trawling the internet for criminal behaviour in relation to the event, said they didn’t identify any offences from the clip.

“The word has a number of meanings but we know the public will most commonly associate it with terrorism,” the Met said in a statement.

“Specialist officers have assessed the video and have not identified any offences arising from the specific clip. We have also sought advice from specialist Crown Prosecution Service lawyers who have reached the same conclusion.”

The Met said they recognise the language is “divisive,” and officers had spoken to the man to “discourage any repeat of similar chanting.”

The Arab word for “struggle” is interpreted by extremists as a so-called holy war against enemies of Islam while moderate muslims argued the word is supposed to be interpreted as a spiritual internal struggle.

Speaking to Sky’s “Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips” programme, Mr. Jenrick said the chant is “completely reprehensible.

“I never want to see scenes like that. It is inciting terrorist violence and it needs to be tackled with the full force of the law,” he said, while stressing it’s ultimately “an operational matter” for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to press charges.

But the minister said it’s a “broader question beyond just legality.”

“It also is a question about values. And there should be a consensus in this country that chanting things like jihad is completely reprehensible and wrong and we don’t ever want to see that in our country,” he said.

Speaking to LBC, the immigration minister said, “Ultimately, if somebody is spreading hate in the UK, they have no place here and they should be asked to leave. I don’t think that there’s any place for chants of ‘Jihad’ on the streets of Britain. I think that’s totally unacceptable. In the context in which that was said yesterday, from what I’ve seen, that is an incitement to terrorist violence,” he said.

Asked about the Met’s decision, he said, “I think a lot of people will find the Metropolitan Police analysis surprising, and that’s something that we intend to raise with them and to discuss this incident with them.”

The man who chanted the word “Jihad” was one of the speakers in the rally.

The man who spoke after him, and whose question prompted his chants, referred to Israel as a “zionist entity.”

Answering his own question, he said, “The solution to rescue the people of Palestine, the Islamic solution, the only solution, is Jihad by armies of the Muslim countries.”

He called on “people with arms” in Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and “across the Muslim world to ”break the chain of command,” and mobilise, according to livestreamed footage of the event by the organiser.

Jenrick: ‘From the River to the Sea’ Unacceptable Too

Mr. Jenrick added that he believes the chanting of “Jihad is as ”completely unacceptable“ as ”chanting ‘From the river to the sea,’“ which echoed London’s street during the main rally on Saturday, which the Met estimated had ”up to 100,000” attendants.

The slogan came from a territorial claim that most or all of that land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, including where Israel is now, belongs to Palestine.

Protesters in Trafalgar Square, central London, during a pro-Palestine march organised by Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Oct. 21, 2023. Stefan Rousseau/PA

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has previously said the slogan is anti-Semitic and said that it is “widely understood” to call for the destruction of Israel.

The popularised slogan is now often accompanied by “Palestine will be free.”

A demonstrator acknowledged that the slogan implies Palestine wants “everything back.”

Omar, 21, whose family are from Gaza, told PA news agency on Saturday that he doesn’t believe it’s a “possible solution” because “there are people living there now,” but there are “worse slogans.”

Meanwhile, the Met is looking for people who were filmed chanting curses against non-believers, or so-called infidels, the Jews, and Israel, saying the actions “amount to a hate crime offence.”

Asked about demonstrators who were hang-glider signs, carrying Hamas flags, and chanting “distressing and intimidating” slogans, Palestinian ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot told Sir Trevor Phillip, “This is abhorrent, unacceptable. Those people hijack our cause for their own twisted logic.”

“The Jewish people have nothing to do with it. This is not a religious conflict. Many of those who demonstrated for Palestine yesterday were Jews. Many of those strong voices are the Jewish people defending us,” he said.

“Those who have hate in their hearts for Jews would have hate in their hearts for Muslims and Christians, we have nothing to do with them and they should shut up.”