Met admits making mistakes on Palestine protests

The Metropolitan Police "didn't get everything right" and could have made arrests sooner when policing recent large-scale protests, the force's assistant commissioner has said.

Speaking to the authors of a report by the Policy Exchange think tank in May, Matt Twist said this was true "particularly in the early stages in October".

Asked to comment on the report by the BBC, he said that "months of protests have had a cumulative impact on London and its communities".

Palestine-related protests in London between October 2023 and June have cost the Metropolitan Police almost £43m and needed almost 52,000 officers, according to its own estimates as revealed by the London Assembly.

'Simply unreasonable'

The right-wing think tank said its report revealed the impact of "a new era of increasingly disruptive protests" on public service finances, public tourism and retail.

Mr Twist said a "significant demand" had been placed on the Met, adding: "Each event presents a policing challenge and requires a substantial amount of planning and resource.

"Our priority has always been to keep people safe, balancing the lawful right to protest with the impact on the wider community."

The Policy Exchange report said that current legislation required protest organisers only to provide six days' notice to the police of their intention to stage a march.

As a result, final plans for the event were often only provided to the public the day before, or on the day of a march, which was "simply unreasonable for the public to be required to continually adapt", the report said.

It also found that in nearly a third of cases, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) chose not to prosecute suspects in public order cases based on "public interest" grounds.

Speaking to the think tank in May, Mr Twist told it that the protests represented a "very real policing challenge".

He added: "On occasion we did not move quickly to make arrests, for example the man chanting for 'jihad' which was a decision made following fast-time advice from lawyers and the CPS."

He told the Policy Exchange that the force was now "much more focused on identifying reasonable grounds for arrest".

There have been frequent protests across the UK since October.

These include marches organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) that called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, as well as environmental campaigns by Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. After three young girls were killed in an attack in Southport on 29 July, many protests also descended into rioting and disorder.

For its report, the Policy Exchange conducted a nationwide poll of more than 1,500 adults.

It found that more than two thirds of respondents would drop plans to travel with small children or an elderly or mobility-impaired friend or relative on the day of a major protest in a nearby city or town.

More than 60% said they would abandon plans to visit a tourist attraction and more than half would cancel plans to go shopping.

A pro-Israeli counter-protest takes place in London on 7 September 2024

The Policy Exchange's report made 26 recommendations, among them a call on the government to change the criteria to prohibit a protest march under section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986 to include assessing the potential for "serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community".

It also called for a Protest Commission for London to be established and appointed by the home secretary.

The Met should impose "more stringent" conditions on protest marches, the report also recommended.

Protests in London have included environmental campaigns by Just Stop Oil

Former Met Commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe, who endorsed the report, said: "In recent years the policing of protest has become increasingly challenging for police commanders and officers on the ground.

"We regularly see police officers demonstrating conspicuous courage and for that they deserve our gratitude and respect."

He called on the government to "rebalance the legal regime in favour of ordinary members of the public going about their daily lives".