Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley reacted rather forcefully when asked a simple question from a journalist today. While leaving the emergency COBRA meeting, a reporter asked “are you going to end two-tier policing?”. Rowley’s response was to grab the microphone and throw it on the floor. Let’s hope there wasn’t any criminal damage…
Rishi Sunak warned the Met he will hold them “accountable” for the decision to give the go ahead of “disrespectful” pro-Palestine marches on Armistice Day, stating that he will summon Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley to a meeting later today over the decision.
Speaking to broadcasters in Lincolnshire, he said:
“[Rowley] has said that he can ensure that we safeguard remembrance for the country this weekend as well as keep the public safe. Now, my job is to hold him accountable for that. We’ve asked the police for information on how they will ensure that this happens. I’ll be meeting the Metropolitan Police Commissioner later today to discuss this.”
Rishi reinforced his views that these marches are “disrespectful“, adding he’ll reiterate this to Rowley. Thousands are expected to show up…
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has again defended the force’s response to Israel-Palestine protests across London this morning, after footage earlier this week showed an officer tearing down posters of kidnapped Israeli children “to avoid inflaming tensions“. Rowley, who is currently up in front of City Hall alongside Sadiq Khan, told Susan Hall this was an isolated incident in which the officer made a “pragmatic” judgement:
“There is a danger that people don’t read the facts of incidents… we are being very balanced at dealing with issues that are potentially inflammatory on a very focused basis… on these campaigning posters raising awareness of the kidnapped children, we are not as a general rule intervening in that… however, in one case when it was highlighted to us by a community member that they’d been placed on the shutters of a shop because there was a pro-Palestinian supporter who worked there, it had been placed on private premises and it was seen to be potentially inflammatory…”
He added the Met also removed Palestinian flags from a Jewish memorial earlier in the week, and it is “not accurate” to suggest the force is biased. They’re just being “pragmatic”…
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has just wrapped up his “productive conversation” with Suella Braverman over the weekend’s anti-Israel protests. Home Office sources are briefing that it was a ‘confrontation’ which challenged the Met’s soft touch, and the force already has the powers to crack down on “distressing” behaviour. Like carrying around banners reading “I fully support Hamas”, or calling for “jihad” against Israel…
Rowley has told Sky News it wasn’t quite a head-to-head battle, and defended the Met’s behaviour. Instead he’s pointing the finger at MPs…
“I was explaining how we are absolutely ruthless in tackling anybody who puts their foot over the legal line. We’re accountable to the law. We can’t enforce taste or decency, but we can enforce the law. And we’ve made 34 arrests so far over the recent protests, we’ve got another 22 cases on the back of those where we are searching for individuals…
The conversation finished really around the line of the law. It’s our job to enforce to that line, it’s Parliament’s job to draw that line, and the thought that maybe events of the moment are illustrating maybe some of the lines aren’t quite in the right place…”
Downing Street also said this morning that the police already have “extensive powers in this space”, so it looks like the blame game continues…
