Politics
Government extremism adviser expresses concern at ‘levels of criminality’ at Palestine protests
Lord Walney has rebuffed reports that he has been dismissed from his role
October 9, 2024 12:30
Lord Walney has rebuffed reports that he has been dismissed from his role
October 9, 2024 12:30The government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption has expressed unease about the law being broken on pro-Palestine demonstrations.
Speaking before the London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee on Wednesday morning, Lord Walney said: “I have been really concerned with the level of criminality that has been on display on protests and the evident difficulty that police officers have in being able to charge all of that criminality event when it is readily in evidence at times on social media.”
While he did accept that “the police cannot be everywhere”, Walney noted that at last Saturday’s pro-Palestine demonstration in London, “there were banners on display in clear support of a proscribed terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, committed to the violent eradication of Israel, which is in clear contravention of the law, which was not picked up at the time.”
The government’s independent adviser claimed that police tactics may have a role in people not being arrested on the spot: “The police rightly point out that they have a responsibility to maintain public order and that in some circumstances, action that they might otherwise want to take may result in a hostile situation being exacerbated.”
However, Walney added that while he understood the line of that argument, “it does create an issue where some of these clear offences are not being immediately brought to justice in a way we’d like to see.”
Nevertheless, he rejected claims of “two-tier policing” and told the committee: “I don’t believe anyone in the Met or its leadership … either consciously or subconsciously … wishes to treat different protests in different ways.”
The Committee’s Chair, former Conservative mayoral candidate Susan Hall AM had asked whether, as a Home Office Select Committee report claimed earlier this year, he thought that policing regular pro-Palestine protests amounted to “the greatest period of sustained pressure on the Met since the Olympics in 2012”.
Walney said that frontline policing was suffering as a result of the frequency of pro-Palestine demonstrations, but had sympathy for police leaders who he claimed “are juggling all of the policing priorities that are set for them by political leaders and the public” and noted that “if an organisation or organisations wish to stage a weekly or even daily large-scale process … they’re obliged to agree to that and to police it”.
The day before Rishi Sunak called July’s general election, Walney published a near-300-page report which noted that the “phenomenon of regular marches in London and other cities protesting against the government’s response to Israel’s war against Hamas … has triggered a period of intense scrutiny on our public order framework” and recommended that organisations who choose to make frequent mass demonstrations be made to pay towards the cost of policing them.
Walney disagreed with characterising his proposals as “pay to protest” and said it was “appropriate” to ask larger organisations to contribute: “If an organisation chooses that particular method, week after week after week, and you can see the strain which it is putting on other policing areas … In an ideal world all of these costs would be met somewhere else, but we are demonstrably not in a world where there are ideal resources and you are having to weigh up cuts to other frontline areas to carry on policing.”
Lord Walney, whose name is John Woodcock, served as a Labour MP for Barrow and Furness in Cumbria between 2010-2019. He resigned from his party in 2018 and called then-leader Jeremy Corbyn a “national security risk”.
He was made a peer by Boris Johnson who in 2020 appointed him to his advisory role.
Prior to his appearance at the London Assembly, there had been speculation about Walney’s future in his role.
News site Byline Times had claimed on Tuesday that Walney had “left office”, something he appeared to dispute on a post on X/Twitter, saying: “It’s important to get your news from credible sources. I’m looking forward to giving evidence tomorrow to the police and crime committee of the London Assembly in my ongoing role as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption.”
It’s important to get your news from credible sources. I’m looking forward to giving evidence tomorrow to the police and crime committee of the London Assembly in my ongoing role as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption.
— Lord Walney (@LordWalney) October 8, 2024
The Times also reported that the future of his role was “under review”.