Does the Metropolitan Police have more respect for the rights of aggressive protestors than it does for Parliament itself? That’s the unavoidable question after the Met handled the latest demonstrations outside the Palace of Westminster with the usual kid gloves.
If the police were not aware of the protestors’ plans, how could such a failure of open-source intelligence occur?
For several hours last Wednesday, many hundreds of Palestine Solidarity Campaign supporters gathered on the perimeter of the Palace of Westminster, effectively surrounding the Parliamentary Estate. As has become the norm at such events, the police appeared to be unwilling to enforce free and unobstructed access to Parliament so long as protest groups are able to mass sufficient numbers of individuals. It is an approach which compromises the Constitutional rights of Parliamentarians to make their way unimpeded to and from Parliament.
The culture of impunity which the various authorities – principally the Met – have created for disruptive protestors and criminals in the area around Parliament has been well documented by Policy Exchange in its report Tarnished
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