THE road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions.
Last week, for perhaps the best possible motives, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Leader of HM Loyal Opposition and the Met Police publicly yielded to mob rule.
Amid threats of extremist violence — and the loss of his job — Speaker Lindsay Hoyle caved in to Labour leader Keir Starmer, tore up the rules and let Labour hijack a ceasefire vote on Gaza.
Outside, in Parliament Square, whooping pro-Palestinian demonstrators celebrated victory over democracy while scores of uniformed police looked on, arms folded.
Ministers are barred from telling fiercely independent police chiefs who to arrest or how to operate.
But senior Government figures are increasingly alarmed by what they see as Met cowardice in the face of racism by anti-Semitic protesters defiantly breaking the law.
“They’ve surrendered the streets and taken the knee to the protesters,” says one.
“They are afraid of what might happen if they arrest troublemakers.”
Elected politicians are scared to speak out in case of retaliation against them and their families.
Security chiefs have had to step up costly protection including chauffeur-driven cars for three threatened female MPs.
Our law-makers tiptoe on eggshells to avoid charges of Islamo- phobia.
Outspoken Red Wall MP Lee Anderson paid the price this weekend when he was suspended as a Tory member for unfounded attacks on London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman claims she was sacked for speaking out against “appeasement of Islamists”.
“We are sleep-walking into a ghettoised society where free expression and British values are diluted,” she insists.
“We need to overcome the fear of being labelled Islamophobic and speak truthfully.”
PM Rishi Sunak joined in yesterday, condemning the “very dangerous signal that intimidation works”.
“Legitimate protests hijacked to promote and glorify terror- ism, elected representatives verbally threatened and physically, violently targeted — it is toxic for our society and our politics,” he said.
In a clear warning to police chiefs, he added: “Our democracy cannot and must not bend to the threat of violence and intimidation or fall into polarised camps who hate each other.”
You don’t need to be paranoid to identify an alarming increase in aggressive extremism.
Well-funded groups are setting up their own political machines to intimidate moderate Muslims, infiltrate Labour constituency parties and bully sitting MPs.
Some with links to terror groups are fielding their own candidates in Labour seats.
These include Ilford North, where future leadership contender Wes Streeting is being targeted for refusing to demand an immediate Gaza ceasefire — tantamount to an Israeli surrender.
One group has even threatened to field a candidate against Keir Starmer at the next election.
It was Starmer’s fear of such rebellions that led to last week’s Commons voting fiasco.
The Labour leader, determined to avoid humiliating desertions, marched into the Speaker’s private rooms and urged Hoyle to rip up the rule book.
“Keir is going to fix the Speaker,” Labour MPs reportedly gloated.
Starmer then allegedly bullied Lindsay Hoyle into ditching a Scot Nats call for an immediate ceasefire, replacing it with a Labour compromise and successfully ducking a revolt by 90 of his own MPs.
He is said to have cited the risk of extremist violence against members of Parliament to justify such strong-arming.
Hoyle, conscious of the 2021 murder of Tory MP Sir David Amess, changed the rules and was later forced to deliver a grovelling Commons apology to save his neck.
Despite his tearful regrets, dozens of SNP and Tory MPs are still insisting he must go.
As the dust settled over the weekend many MPs, including Labour, agreed on one thing — Labour leader Starmer has “fed the beast” and put himself at the mercy of mob rule.
The safety of MPs outside the House of Commons has nothing to do with the Speaker.
This is the job of the police and security forces — and the Met has signally failed to deliver.
And by forcing the Speaker’s hand and capitulating to pumped-up extremists, Sir Shifty has provided us with an early taste of the way a Starmer regime would perform under pressure.
AMERICA’S likely next President spoke for many when he slammed Prince Harry’s “unforgivable” betrayal of the late Queen Elizabeth.
The Biden White House, said Donald Trump, had been “too gracious” to Harry and Meghan since they moved to America in 2020.
“I wouldn’t protect him,” he said. “He betrayed the Queen. That’s unforgivable. He’d be on his own if it was down to me.”
This is a blow to the Ginger Whinger, whose lurid description of illegal drug use in his memoir, Spare, clashes with America’s strict ban on foreigners with a history of such activities.
It could also affect any plans Harry might have to apply for full US citizenship.
“The thought has crossed my mind,” he said recently.
