MPs Demand Met Chief Retract Antisemitism Smears Against Protesters

Prominent MPs including Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have called for the Met Police chief to retract “gravely misleading comments” linking pro-Palestinian marches to antisemitism. 

The former Labour leader is the top signatory on a new letter highlighting “baseless claims” made by Mark Rowley. 

The Scotland Yard boss said organisers of the Nakba 78 march on 16 May pushed for a route that would take demonstrators past a synagogue.   

“Their initial suggestion for their route, their march, has involved walking by a synagogue,” Rowley told the Times. 

“Each time we’ve prevented that, we’ve put conditions on. The fact that features as the organisers’ intent, I think that sends a message… that feels like antisemitism. 

“That may be a fair or unfair inference, but that’s the message it sends.”

But the organisers’ first route suggestion was from Embankment to Whitehall, via Westminster and Waterloo bridges – which does not pass any synagogues, Corbyn’s letter notes. 

A second suggested route, which was likewise rejected by Met police, also did not pass any synagogues.

The letter was signed by 32 MPs, including Hannah Spencer, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, and four members of the House of Lords. 

“Our government is still supplying arms to Israel as it continues to bomb, starve & dispossess the Palestinian people,” Corbyn said on social media after sharing the letter on Wednesday.

“That is why thousands of us continue to demonstrate – and that is why we reject disgraceful attempts to malign our movement for peace.”

The Palestine Coalition, which is made up of six groups including Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition, has submitted a formal legal complaint to the London mayor’s office for policing and crime about Rowley’s comments.

Corbyn’s letter also accuses the Met of double standards after it approved a route for a march led by far-right agitator Tommy Robinson on the same day. Police have allowed attendees “to assemble a short distance from multiple mosques”, Corbyn wrote. 

Rowley’s remarks come in the wake of comments by Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, who has called for a temporary ban on pro-Palestine marches.