May 20, 2024 - 7:00am

Along with tourists outside Buckingham Palace and traffic jams, pro-Palestine marches have become a mainstay of London weekends. But direct action hasn’t been limited to the capital city — protests, boycotts and stunts in the name of anti-Israel campaigns have included taking over university buildings, releasing rats in fast-food chains, spray-painting buildings and shutting down Israel-related events up and down the country.

Critics of these protests argue that open antisemitism has been given a free pass by organisers or attendees willing to turn a blind eye — or even encouraged by a not-so-minority view in support of Hamas and Islamism.

What to do? Police officers seem incapable of handling these protests without scandal. Indeed, they have threatened to arrest what they call “openly Jewish” people and those holding “Hamas is terrorist” signs, while seeming to chin-scratch and split hairs over whether “jihad” is a call to violence. Perhaps understandably, many want Something To Be Done. After all, when there is an accusation of any other type of prejudice — racism in the police, sexism in Parliament, Islamophobia in schools — there is an expectation that everyone should rally to the defence of those under attack.

The Government’s answer to all of this is to threaten to institute yet another law clamping down on public protest. Rumours in Westminster suggest that the Conservatives want to amend the Public Order Act to allow “processions to be banned and public assemblies to be restricted”. Preempting the upcoming report by Lord Walney on political violence and disruption, rumours suggest that the Government is considering following one recommendation to create a new legal classification to stop groups which “interfere with the rights of others”. Much like the “how noisy is a too noisy protest” question of the recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, this vague notion of interfering leaves a lot of room for draconian crackdowns.

The antisemitism on display in large quantities on some of these marches is stomach-churning — but it should not be banned. We cannot allow a trigger-happy state to squash the freedom of citizens to voice unpopular or even uncivilised views. Those who hold placards with antisemitic tropes, or celebrate the rape and murder of the 7 October pogrom as a win for Palestinian sovereignty, will not have their minds changed by being hauled off to the cells. By engaging in a narcissistic attempt to win votes in the run-up to the election, the Government’s flirtation with further censorship risks making free-speech martyrs out of those who have no respect for freedom themselves.

The principle of the freedom to protest — to make your voice heard in the public square — must always stand separate from the content of that protest. Some views will always be appalling — history shows us that the scourge of antisemitism has long and deep roots. Others are less black and white. In giving the state the power to crush dissent in the name of safety or protection, we give up our ability to demand change. Freedom of speech is sometimes painful to hear and sometimes painful to argue for — but it must always reign supreme.


Ella Whelan is a freelance journalist, commentator and author of What Women Want: Fun, Freedom and an End to Feminism.

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