BRITAIN’S top cop threw down the gauntlet to Suella Braverman last night saying he was powerless to ban pro-Palestine Armistice Day marches.
Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley says the threshold to call off the rally hadn’t been reached but won’t hesitate to ask the government to take action as a “last resort”.
Ministers have strongly indicated to cops they use their powers to ask the Home Secretary for a ban ahead of the planned protest on Saturday.
Sir Mark said: “If over the next few days the intelligence evolves further and we get to such a high threshold, and it’s only been once in a decade where we need to say to the Home Secretary ‘we think it’s got to the stage, we need to ban the march’ element then of course we will do.
“But that’s a last resort that we haven’t reached yet.”
Sir Mark added: “The Remembrance events will not be disturbed. Whatever protests and events go on we will do our utmost to protect those because they are so critical.
“People shouldn’t be in fear that those are going to be compromised and we will do everything possible to ensure they are not.”
The flash point comes after the Prime Minister wrote to Sir Mark last week saying any such demonstrations were “provocative and disrespectful”.
Senior Met cops pleaded with rally organisers on Monday night to “urgently reconsider” this weekend’s march amid fears of violence from breakaway groups. They are set to talk again throughout this week.
Rowley is able to ask London Mayor Sadiq Khan or the Home Secretary to stop a protest if there is a serious risk of public disorder.
The march on Saturday will start nearly two hours after the two-minute silence at 11am without passing near the Cenotaph where a national service of remembrance will take place the following day.
Sir Mark also appeared at odds with Suella Braverman’s description of the rallies as ‘hate marches’.
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He said: “There’s a diverse range of people there. Many people are pacifists and perfectly behaved discharging their public right to protest.”
He said: “I wouldn’t use one phrase to characterise 100,000 people.”
Tory MP Jonathan Gullis last night said: “Mark Rowley is not being brave enough to make the decision.
“You have to assume it is because he is scared and/or trying to dodge saying no to the ‘protests’, because he worries it would been seen as ‘controversial’ from a vocal minority on social media. Very weak!”
Meanwhile, the PM is demanding cops use the “full force of the law” to investigate an alleged assailant who threw a punch at a veteran poppy seller.
Downing Street last night called the incident “repulsive” following the attack on the fund-raiser during a pro-Palestinian rally.
Jim Henderson, 78, says he was hit as he tried to leave a train station at the weekend as hundreds of protesters rallied against the Israeli government in Gaza.
The ex-servicemen, who served in the Royal Corps of Signals in Northern Ireland, claimed the assault took place as he ran a poppy stall in Edinburgh on Saturday.
A Number 10 spokesman said: “This was a repulsive act. Mr Henderson, like all our veterans, has made huge sacrifices for our country.
“We are confident the police will treat this incident very seriously and use the full force of the law available to them.”
He was helped by three women working at the railway as they got him off the floor.
Henderson said: “I was getting shoved backwards, in danger of falling, and one of them stood on my foot and split my toe.
“I thought I had got to get the money out of here. So I went down, and as I bent down someone punched me in the back. And then I got another punch in my side. I’ve never known anything like it.”
