DAC James Harman's statement at media briefing ahead of public order events

At a media briefing at New Scotland Yard this morning, James Harman, Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Met Operations, said the following ahead of public order events over the coming week.

We’ve invited you to this briefing to update you on our plans for the coming week. This has the potential to be busy for policing in London.

Over the course of the next week, hundreds of officers will be deployed across a number of protests and other events. While we police and will manage all of these individually, taken together their impact, at a really sensitive time, creates the risk of communities feeling unsafe and unsupported.

So we wanted to tell you about our policing approach today.

Where we need to we will take a robust approach – imposing strict conditions where the intelligence indicates there is a risk of serious disorder, serious disruption or that others would be threatened and intimidated – and take a zero-tolerance approach to criminality of any kind, including hate crime.

We are expecting to police half a dozen protests and events across the next week. These include a proposed student march on the third anniversary of the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, a pro-Palestine march through central London on Saturday, 10 October and, of course, a by-election. These will take place on top of the 4,000 or so calls the Metropolitan Police already receives every day.

Each of these events over the next week represents a challenge for policing. Many have the potential to be challenging as the effect of, really, an increasingly polarised society plays out on London’s streets. And each takes police officers away from the neighbourhoods and the communities where we want them to be.

All this happens at a time of continued global instability. And as we know and as we have seen before, this has the potential to fuel further tensions and to play out on the streets of London.

In the past month, we’ve seen arrests made in connection with a reported planned terror attack on the Jewish community in Manchester, as well as other global events, and fears in the capital’s Jewish communities are particularly heightened. But we know, of course that many communities, including London’s Muslim communities, also feel fearful, and all feel the impact of events in this country and around the world.

So I will now address each of next week’s events we are dealing with in turn.

So, firstly, we do anticipate there may be issues this weekend during canvassing ahead of the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, which will take place on Thursday, 8 October. In recent weekends officers have made arrests after conflict between those canvassing and protesters, with reports of intimidating and obstructive conduct.

Now, this is wholly unacceptable. In a democracy political parties need to be given space to lawfully canvass and campaign. And to be clear, where police have intervened this has been based on a clear policing purpose – preventing crime, preventing disorder - and not on any political preference nor on any perceived ‘two-tier’ approach. We are politically neutral but we will always exercise our powers in whatever context to keep people safe.

On Sunday, we are expecting around 5,000 people to attend a march in Whitechapel to mark the 90^th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street.

They will form up on Whitechapel Road before heading to Cable Street and St George’s Town Hall, via Aldgate East Station and Leman Street. There will be a policing presence, and a number of roads will be closed. We are not anticipating disorder, but there may be disagreement between different groups attending the event so it is important we are there to provide reassurance.

On Wednesday, 7 October, a group of students calling themselves the University of London Coalition are expected to march from Kings College London in the Strand to University College London in Holborn, beginning at midday. They have demanded the end to what they have described as a genocide in Gaza.

Wednesday marks three years since the horrific October 7 terrorist attack on Israel and the start of the ensuing conflict in Gaza. The impact of both has been felt here in the capital and across the world.

For many in our city, this will be a day of mourning, a day of reflection, and we are aware of a number of vigil events being planned.

Serious concerns have been expressed about the impact of this march on students and staff, particularly those who are Jewish, the route, and the day it is being held.

We, the Met, have attempted to find and contact the student organisers to ask them to very carefully consider the impact their event will have, and to ask them to hold this event on a different day. Finding the organisers has so far proved difficult - and so I use this opportunity today to urge them to reconsider and to make contact with us urgently so that they can plan their event on a different date.

I am also saying today to anyone who is intending to join the march – please reflect on the impact and distress it will cause on this very significant day, and exercise your right to protest on a different date.

Now if the protest does go ahead we will have no choice but to police it – and our policing plan will take account of the impact on the community that holding that protest on that specific date will have.

If the organisers refuse to move the date, to try to minimise the impact we have also written today to the four universities the students attend to ask for their help and their leadership.

Our letter acknowledges the importance of freedom of expression, peaceful protest and academic debate and, of course, the vital role universities play in fostering discussion, challenge and the exchange of ideas, including around highly contested international issues.

But against the backdrop of recent Community Security Trust findings that the number of antisemitic incidents at UK universities is substantially higher than pre-October 2023 levels, we have joined other voices in emphasising the responsibility of universities to ensure that Jewish students and staff can study, work and participate fully in university life without intimidation, harassment or discrimination.

We have asked the universities to take all reasonable steps to ensure activity on their premises does not create an environment in which Jewish students or staff feel excluded, targeted or unsafe, and that they engage with their staff and students ahead of the march which is currently planned for 7 October.

Our final policing plan is still under development, and we are well aware that there have been calls for this march to be banned.

We have said this before but it is always worth repeating and reminding. The police cannot give permission for protests or marches to go ahead, nor do we have any power in law to refuse permission. We can only impose conditions on organisers, under the Public Order Act, to prevent serious disruption or serious disorder, or disruption to the life of the community

The Public Order Act does give us the power to seek a ban from the Home Secretary, but only if officers feel there is a risk of disorder so serious that it cannot be dealt with by the application of conditions as part of a wider policing plan. That is a very high bar and that is very rarely used.

This banning power only applies to marches and not static assemblies. If used the most likely outcome is it turns a march into a static protest.

On Wednesday, we will use our full powers under the law to ensure that appropriate conditions, such as on the route taken and the timing of the march, are imposed and adhered to – and those conditions will be publicised in the usual way.

Anyone who breaches these conditions, or who encourages others to do so, can be arrested. Again, we will take a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime and any other offending. And I would point out that since October 2023 we have made over 17,000 arrests for hate crime offences.

On Saturday, 10 October, we anticipate that up to 10,000 people will attend the Palestine Coalition’s national call-out.

This is the first such march in three months. Similar to previous routes, the march will form up at noon near Northumberland Avenue on the Embankment, with people making their way from Embankment to Westminster Bridge, along the South Bank to Waterloo Bridge and the Strand, before ending with a rally on Whitehall. The event will conclude at 17:00hrs. We are anticipating a counter-protest by Stop the Hate and others.

While organisers have engaged constructively with us, the events still have the potential to result in significant disruption to Londoners.

Police will impose strict conditions on the march, around the timing and route of the protest. These will be communicated in advance of the event.

The policing presence on the day is expected to be significant, with several hundred officers involved in ensuring disruption is kept to a minimum and any crime or disorder is dealt with swiftly and robustly.

There have been 35 large protests organised by the groups that make up the Palestine Coalition since October 2023. Those taking part all have their own varied motives and allegiances. The majority who attend do so peacefully and do so lawfully, but we have seen arrests from a small minority across these protests for racially and religiously aggravated public order offences, for stirring up racial hatred and for supporting terrorist organisations.

We must police them to prevent and detect offending and to support our communities. But as I have said, we would far, far prefer to be using our officers in the communities where they are most needed.

We are also mindful that there may be other, spontaneous events and protests across the week, such as related to immigration. We will respond to those and we will police those as necessary, alongside the challenges and the events I’ve already described.

So, moving on, I wanted to take this opportunity to issue a general warning to those attending protest events over the coming week.

We have absolutely no desire to get involved in politics.

We have absolutely no desire to police culture wars or wars of words between opposing groups. That is very clearly not our role.

But the Met absolutely has a role and policing has a role when it comes to preventing serious disorder, violence and hate crime. And we will be robust in doing so.

Last year, the Met committed to taking a more assertive approach to chants and displays of phrases on placards or banners that incite hatred or indicate support for terrorism or other forms of extremism.

We have arrested and charged individuals for calling for an intifada at protests, with those cases working their way through the courts.

Our officers will take firm action if when they see or hear antisemitism, anti-Muslim abuse, incitement to violence, language that clearly points to support for terrorists or proscribed groups, for example Palestine Action.

We will arrest for those offences when we see them at protests and marches in the coming week. We wil investigate post-event where necessary. And specialist investigators will work at pace to present the cases to the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure those responsible are swiftly put before the courts.

Over the past three years, the Met has gained significant experience policing regular, large-scale protest events. This is nothing new for us.

What is unusual about the coming week is the variety of different events and protests and the sensitivity of the timing.

I want to reassure Londoners that we will have a robust policing plan in place for each and every event and protest.

Inevitably, all of this will come at a cost to taxpayers. We anticipate that more than 600 officers will be involved in policing the various protests and events, including specialist units.

The 35 large protests organised by the groups that make up the Palestine Coalition since October 2023, as well as other protests related to the conflict, have cost the Met £26.6 million to police.

However, when you add opportunity costs that increases to £90m.

To explain that breakdown, our costs include extra expenditure caused by the event such as officer overtime, vehicle hire or mutual aid.

Opportunity costs are the value of an existing on duty resource being diverted from a day job to the event, for example a constable who would have been working in the local community but is now policing at a protest or event in central London.

There is a wider cost to Londoners that goes beyond the financial. The Met has a limited pool of officers and more generally we are working to reduce the number of officers being taken away from their day-to-day roles in order to police public events and protests like these.

So, we will do what we can to prevent officers being taken away from their core, frontline policing roles – where we know communities want them. But it is inevitable that will happen.

So, to return to where I started.

This coming week will be very busy for the Metropolitan Police.

On the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Israel, the strength of community feeling will be running particularly high.

As always, we will police without fear or favour. We will facilitate people’s right to lawful protest.

But I end with a warning: if anyone thinks they can commit crime, intimidate our communities or stir up hatred towards others, they should think again as they will be dealt with swiftly and decisively.