Met to ‘bolster’ police presence in Jewish areas on Al Quds Day

For the first time in recent memory, the River Thames will act as a barrier between the two sides of the protest.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said: “There has been dedicated policing around most vulnerable places, not just the Jewish premises, but other premises… we will bolster those again this weekend.”

Londoners “will see increased policing around vulnerable areas,” he added.

At a press briefing on Thursday, Adelekan outlined that a stationary protest and counter-protest will take place between 13:30 and 15:00, between the Lambeth and Vauxhall bridges.

Supporters of the regime-linked event will be positioned on the Albert Embankment, with a collection of counter-protesting groups on the Millbank side of the river.

Anyone breaching protest conditions will face arrest, Adelkan added, but he did not confirm whether the bridges would be closed to the public. 

He also explained that “officers on the ground will be briefed on placards, flags and chanting that will cross the line into hate crime or support for proscribed groups” and reiterated that, as per the commissioner’s previous statements, “officers will act on chants of ‘Intifada’”.

“Any criminality at the protest will be faced with decisive action,” he added, and did not rule out arresting protesters expressing support for Palestine Action

While acknowledging that predicting protest numbers “is never an exact science,” Adelekan estimated 6,000 attendees supporting Al Quds Day, with a similar number of counter-protesters. He noted that the Met had once projected 50,000 demonstrators for a protest, only for numbers to reach 150,000.

Four groups, including Stop the Hate and the Lion Guard of Iran, have applied to the Met to counter-protest.

Adelekan explained that the “complexity” of the different groups and the international context required careful planning to ensure they “will not come together”.

He added: “It is our concern that there will be serious disorder to members of the public” if the march had not been cancelled. “I cannot guarantee that there will still not be disorder [at the static protest] but it will mitigate it, and that is why we have done this.”

One thousand officers will be involved in the operation, with the capacity to call in more if necessary. Adelekan said the force’s “main objective is to make sure that everybody can go about their business. That's the reason why we've had to pull a whole load of resources from this.”

He noted that the Met does not have a “standing army of officers,” and many will come from neighbourhood policing.

“So we are decreasing our visibility in some areas in order to make sure that other parts of London remain as calm as we possibly can keep them.”

Adelekan emphasised that the Met’s request to the Home Secretary to ban the march – the first such request since 2012 – “does not set a precedent” and was “not taken lightly.”

The decision was informed by “the intelligence itself, the intelligence gap, the community impact, the community's attention, the history of the events going backwards, what we understand about the crowds, the counter protest.

He added that police assessments concluded that even with strict conditions, moving protests and counter-protests could have allowed the two sides to come together, “putting the public, protestors and our officers at risk.”