On the 11^th November 2023 the largest of a series of ongoing popular demonstrations against Israel’s actions against the population of Gaza took place in London. By some estimates between 800,000 and a million people attended, certainly far more than the official estimates of 300,000. By any standards this was a significant expression of popular feeling, peacefully but passionately expressed against what amounts to a genocide against the civilian population of Gaza conducted by Israel under the pretext of defeating the military forces of Hamas.

Labour Affairs has emphasised the very narrow limits of tolerance to dissent allowed under ‘liberal democracy’ and the events surrounding the march of the 11^th November illustrate the point very well. The 11^th November is Armistice Day. In Britain it is a celebration of British militarism in the guise of remembrance for fallen soldiers from all of Britain’s past and ongoing wars. As such the highlighting of this event is important to the efforts of the ruling elite to maintain a martial spirit among the population in order to support whatever military adventures they wish to engage in. In a triumph of public relations, the militaristic intent is cloaked in wreaths and mournful music, but this is just in order not to make the militarism too obvious. They were thus particularly annoyed at the prospect of having a peace march taking place on that day, contradicting their foreign policy stance which is supportive of Israel’s genocide and deflating the militaristic atmosphere of the Armistice weekend. 

For some time previously the then Home Secretary, Mrs Braverman, had been describing these marches as ‘hate marches’, an odd term for marches organised in order to stop the killing of civilians. She asked the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, to explore ways of banning this particular March. The reasoning was clearly set out by the Prime Minister, Sunak: 

“To plan protests on Armistice Day is provocative and disrespectful, and there is a clear and present risk that the Cenotaph and other war memorials could be desecrated, something that would be an affront to the British public and the values we stand for. The right to remember, in peace and dignity, those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for those freedoms must be protected. I have asked the Home Secretary to support the Met Police in doing everything necessary to protect the sanctity of Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday.”

The security minister, Tom Tugendhat, a prominent Tory militarist, said:

“It is a moment where we remember those we lost, and I think for the whole country the Cenotaph is sacred ground and the idea that on a day like Remembrance Day you would have a protest going past it, I don’t think that is acceptable.”

The idea was to bamboozle the public into thinking that the march would pass the Cenotaph, the ‘sacred ground’ of the militarists. In fact the organisers of the march had negotiated a route with the police that would pass no nearer than a mile away from the Cenotaph. This had been done weeks before and Sunak, Braverman and Tugendhat knew this perfectly well. The statements quoted above were clearly intended to mislead the public and to put pressure on the police whose job it was to ensure public order on such occasions. In other words, they were seeking to intimidate the police into banning the march on spurious grounds. This is liberal democracy, where you ban popular protests that make your own policies look foolish and unpopular. The Labour Party leadership did nothing either to support the government’s view of the march or to oppose it,  but made it clear that it did not want Labour Party members joining the march. In other words, it was comfortable with the ban, but let the Tories make the running. Thus both the parties of state in Britain supported a ban (one explicitly, one implicitly) on a march that opposed a key aspect of a foreign policy supported by both parties. 

To his credit, despite enormous pressure, which included being carpeted by Sunak, the Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, insisted on allowing the march to go ahead. From what we can gather, it was policed in a respectful way and there was little if any disruption from the marchers. Rowley deserves praise for having the moral courage to resist the political bullies and to uphold the rule of law. It is a telling commentary on those who celebrate our freedoms by banning marches that exercise those freedoms that it is the police, in defiance of ‘democratic’ politicians, who have to undertake that function. 

However, the sly attempt to link the march to the possible desecration of the Cenotaph backfired as the statements of Sunak, Braverman and Tugendhat acted as a dog whistle to the far right to mobilise against the march. Intoxicated and drugged, they assembled to ‘defend’ the Cenotaph. Sacred ground was thus desecrated due to the actions of the Tories and their newspaper supporters. The result of this was to unintentionally expose the militaristic nature of the Armistice Day celebrations by showing its most ardent supporters to be far right thugs, thus confirming the suspicions of those who suspected its true nature all along.

If it were not for a resolute Police Commissioner, the diminishing freedoms of the British could easily have been diminished still further by politicians claiming to uphold ‘liberal democracy.’