Met Chief: Policing Pro-Palestine Protests Is Greatest Challenge Since 2012 Olympics

People in a Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstration in Piccadilly Circus, London, dated Oct. 9, 2023. Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire

Senior Met police officers told a committee that the scale of policing pro-Palestine events is beyond that of the 2012 London Olympics.

During the Home Affairs Committee on policing protests on Tuesday, MPs heard the scale of events, which has seen thousands of people taking to the streets every Saturday afternoon since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct 7.

Met Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said that between Oct. 7 and Dec. 8, the Met’s cost of operations is £17 million.

He added that they have more than 800 “open hate crimes,” which need over 6,000 hours of police time to investigate all of them.

In some cases, protesters have chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” despite the controversy around the slogan’s meaning.

In some cases, protesters have been seen carrying a banner that read “Let’s keep the world clean” with a picture of an Israeli flag being thrown into a bin.

Biggest Convergence of Threats

Mr. Twist said that what we’re “seeing in London is the biggest convergence of threats we’ve seen” and that “the impact of major global events being felt on the streets of London.”

“The effects of the appalling terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7 and subsequently the military response of the Israeli government is resonating on the streets of London and in our communities,” he said.

He said that it had been the “greatest period of sustained pressure” on the Met since the 2012 London Olympics.

He added that it the “chronic demand” for police has also been compounded for responding to Just Stop Oil over the past few weeks.

He noted that the Met’s specialist “Voyager” CCTV monitoring team has been scanning the crowds to identify people with anti-Semitic and/or pro-terrorist group placards.

He said that he “made it clear” that he wanted officers to intervene at the time during protests—as if they left it longer “it would embolden others.”

“We’re using technology monitoring social media, so we can try and find these people in real time. If we fail, then the very widespread publicity around those images witnessed appeals asking for identification has proven effective,” he added.

Iranian Influence

Met assistant commissioner Matt Jukes said they are watching for Iranian influence.

“Since January of last year, we have been involved with MI5 in the disruption of over 15 threats to life associated with Iranian state aggression toward dissident voices in the UK,” he said, adding that this is still “fueling online fueling polarisation and division” in communities.

He said that the “appetites” some of those state actors might have to fuel division in the UK “will be even more acute.”

“We have at the moment no direct evidence to link state action,” he said, but he added that  the Iranian interest in the conflict is “obviously very well well rehearsed, and that would be the principal concern in the case.”

He added they peeked at a 12-fold increase in the amount of public referrals of online material to them.

“From over 2,500 referrals, around 500 require investigation as potential breaches of UK-based terrorism legislation. We’ve seen calls to the Anti Terrorist hotline double a significant increase in the amount of useful intelligence coming from communities to that hotline, and overall, an increase of around 25 percent in the intelligence flowing through counterterrorism policing,” he said.

Chief Constable Chris Haward said that the demand for police has gone up “significantly.”

“At the moment, in terms of our resilience, we’ve been deploying around about 18 percent of our total assets,” he said.

He said that officers will “likely be working on protests every single weekend and probably will be doing for several weeks, maybe months to come.”