British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the government could move to ban some pro-Palestinian marches in certain circumstances citing the cumulative effect the demonstrations have had on the Jewish community in Britain. The comments came days after two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green in north London and as Britain raised its national terrorism threat level to severe.According to Reuters, Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest but said chants such as “Globalise the Intifada” were completely off limits and that those using them should face prosecution. When asked directly whether protests should face tougher action on specific chants and banners or whether they should be stopped altogether Starmer said he supported the first and that there were instances where he would support the latter as well. He said it was time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect they were having.Reuters also reported that Britain raised its terrorism threat level to severe on Thursday amid growing security concerns that foreign states were actively helping to fuel violence against the Jewish community in the UK. The head of counter-terrorism policing Laurence Taylor said there was an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in Britain and that police were working against an unpredictable global situation with consequences closer to home including physical threats by state-linked actors.Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the BBC that the discussion about protest restrictions was not one that had begun this week in response to the Golders Green stabbings. He said conversations with police about this issue had been under way for some time. He said many people in the Jewish community had told him it was the repeat nature of the marches and the cumulative effect that concerned them most.Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley told the Times he did not support a temporary ban on pro-Palestinian marches describing it as impractical but said police needed clearer and sharper legal powers to manage protests. Rowley said protest laws were messy and complicated and needed to be strengthened.Organizers of the pro-Palestine demonstrations pushed back firmly. John Rees, co-founder of the Stop the War coalition, told Sky News that a ban would strike at the root of free assembly and free speech in Britain. He said the demonstrations had been attended by millions of people and that only a minuscule number of arrests had been made for offensive conduct at those events. As reported by the Guardian, Rees also said there was no causal relationship between the marches and attacks on Jewish people and that individuals who had carried out such attacks had no known connection to the protest movement.Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch went further than Starmer and called for a full ban on pro-Palestinian marches saying they were being used as cover for promoting violence and intimidation against Jewish people.
