A Palestinian protest sparks the Met’s ‘force mobilisation’ contingency plan

Chris Hobbs attends a mid-week Pro-Palestine demonstration which resulted in disorder and injured officers.

It should have been a routine mid-week pro-Palestinian protest as a had occurred on a number of occasions in Whitehall since the crisis in the Middle East began on October the 7th. I suspect that whoever compiled the ‘low key ‘threat assessment would have predicted events to follow a similar pattern as indeed I would have done (and I compiled plenty of threat assessments during my time in Special Branch).

However, events in Rafa clearly struck a chord and it soon became obvious that the white ‘crowd control’ tape employed to keep the traffic flowing on the southbound carriageway was not going to be adequate as hundreds more were arriving from both directions. Despite the best efforts of police, that southbound carriageway had to be closed as numbers spilled into the road.

The police focus shifted to the northbound carriageway towards Trafalgar Square but again the numbers were too great for police while the normally efficient stewards proved surprisingly ineffective.

Whitehall was now closed to traffic and the crowds that gathered outside Downing Street were surprisingly dense with the Met later putting their estimate at 10,000.

Officers deal with a medical emergency

As the speeches commenced, there was a disturbance in the crowd involving officers and initially I thought there was an arrest in progress. Suddenly a group of officers could be seen moving with urgency through the crowd and the reason for the urgency became apparent. They were carrying a female casualty horizontally out of the crowd to where she could receive proper treatment.

The speeches were completed surprisingly quickly with a half an hour to go before the appointed ‘witching hour,’ of 8pm. A large ‘chant fest,’ began close to the Downing Street gates which included drums, trumpets and a trombone but many of the crowd opted to leave doubtless content that their point had been made peacefully.

Just before 8.30pm, officers began asking spectators perched on walls to climb down and leave the area. It was amicable and all complied. Officers then began moving amongst the ‘chant fest,’ crowd politely explaining that it was time to end the event. Some complied, but others decided to stage a ‘sit-down’ protest in the road. By this time, probably around two-thirds of the original crowd had gone while others (like me) were simply spectating; curious as to what was about to occur.

Disorder

The stand-off continued for a short while before the protesters turned around and, as a body, walked towards Parliament Square. It was a mob which was out of control and within minutes officers were running past them to get to the head of this march. Running police then tempted others to run thus, to the passing tourists, the situation must have looked chaotic and worrying. One far right social media post stated that officers were ‘running away.’

The mob then grouped up and took a left into Bridge Street where Westminster Station is situated and which leads to Westminster Bridge. A police cordon was hurriedly established at the far end of Bridge Street and another at the opposite end by Parliament Square. Although police public order practitioners dislike the term, the mob was now effectively kettled.

They drifted along to the Parliament end of Bridge Street and using a four wheeled appliance that looked like a ‘fruit and veg’ stall complete with small Palestinian flags,  they made one determined attempt to break through the police cordon which was repulsed.

Escaping the ‘kettle,’ I went to long way round to get behind the police cordon at Parliament Square and on arrival, saw that police ‘NATO,’ helmets were being collected from carriers and worn. This would appear to be the result of a female Met officer receiving a nasty injury having been struck in the face by a thrown bottle. Police were also occasionally moving into the crowd and making arrests. In a later statement the Met said that these arrests were of persons arrested as being the ringleaders of the disorder. In all, 40 arrests were made during the course of the evening.

The disorder resulted in the Met’s ‘force mobilisation,’ plan being utilised and by the end of the evening numerous carriers could be seen parked while ‘prisoner vans,’ were arriving on blues and twos.

When Saturday comes

The Met, City and BTP forces now brace themselves for a challenging Saturday across London in terms of public order with a protest against ‘two tier policing,’ closely linked to the ‘we want our country back,’ theme; this event is being well publicised across the country. This march and rally is being challenged by an anti-racist, ‘Fascists off our streets,’ counter-protest. These events would be problematic in themselves, but London is also hosting tens of thousands of football fans from Germany and Spain as Rael Madrid and Dortmund meet in the Champions League final at Wembley.

It would be fascinating to be the proverbial ‘fly on the wall,’ in the offices of ‘Gold’ and ‘Silver,’ during this most testing of days.

Chris Hobbs is a former Special Branch officer who has been following public order events as an observer for Police Oracle.

Category: OpsPublic Order