Last Wednesday evening saw a watershed moment in Britain.
Parliamentary rules were torn up and democratic debate scrapped under the pressure of threats to murder British members of parliament in connection with a foreign war, as I commented here.
While the mob in Parliament Square waved a phalanx of Palestinian flags and bayed abuse of Israel, the words “from river to sea” were projected onto parliament’s Elizabeth Tower, or “Big Ben”.
The symbolism was devastating and appalling. The slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is the infamous cry, by those waging Islamic holy war and their western supporters, for the destruction of Israel and the Jews within it. Yet it was being projected onto the structure that symbolises democracy and the nation. No less terrible than using parliament to stage a call for the genocide of the Jews, this was also a gloating statement that the Islamists were now in control of Britain.
It was subsequently reported that Ben Jamal, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign who organised Wednesday’s hate-fest outside the Commons, told demonstrators to “ramp up the pressure” on MPs and to demonstrate in such numbers “that they will have to lock the doors of parliament itself”.
On Saturday, the police closed Tower Bridge for an hour as the “ceasefire now” mob blocked traffic and let off flares.
And the police stood back and let this happen — even though they have legal powers to prevent such “disruption to the life of the community”, just as they have powers to prevent demonstrators from screaming “death to the Jews” or “globalise the intifada” as they have done every week since the October 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel.
Criticised for standing by while “from river to sea” was projected onto parliament, the police responded:
This is a chant that has been frequently heard at pro-Palestinian demonstrations or many years and we are aware of the strength of feeling in relation to it. While there are scenarios where chanting or using these words could be unlawful depending on the specific location for context, its use in a wider public protest setting such as [Wednesday] might is not a criminal offence.
How exactly does a genocidal slogan become lawful just because it is used in a “wider public protest setting”? This response was as asinine as the previous statement by the Metropolitan Police that the call for “jihad” heard at these demonstrations could bear a number of different meanings — regardless of the fact that in this particular “scenario” it has only one meaning: holy war.
At best, these police responses are the product of their “diversity training” — as a result of which they “took the knee” to Black Lives Matter and danced with the nihilistic social disruptors of Extinction Rebellion.
At worst it may be because, as the Jewish Chronicle reported last week, they have been trained by Islamists in how to deal with “Islamophobia”, the pseudo-psychiatric neologism which has nothing to do with actual prejudice against Muslims — which should be condemned like any other prejudice — but was invented specifically to suppress legitimate discussion and criticism of the Islamic world.
An impulse that has been on display once again over the past few days. The former Conservative party chairman, Lee Anderson MP, had the Conservative whip withdrawn over his comment that Sadiq Khan, the Muslim Mayor of London, was under the control of Islamists and had “given our capital away to his mates”.
Anderson undoubtedly went too far in accusing Khan of being an Islamist stooge. Nevertheless, there are legitimate questions to be asked of Khan’s behaviour in his role overseeing the Metropolitan Police. The Mayor’s website says his responsibilities involve setting the Met’s priorities and “holding them to account for delivering a professional, efficient and effective service to Londoners”. Yet under Khan’s oversight, the Met have failed week after week to implement public order laws on the streets of London and have instead facilitated gross anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement.
The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and the Home Secretary, James Cleverly, are doing little more than flapping their hands and passing yet more public order laws for the police to ignore. Sunak said on Friday that some of the scenes witnessed in recent months, particularly the antisemitic behaviour, were “appalling and unacceptable”.
Feeble or what? If he really wanted to counter the rampant antisemitism that is currently taking Britain into the sewer, he should be declaring that the campaign of demonisation against Israel is based on vicious lies and genocide denial; that the Palestinian cause is the principal conduit for Jew-hatred in Britain; and that he is taking immediate action against the Hamas operatives and other Islamists and fellow-travellers who are behind these “appalling and unacceptable” mob hate-fests.
He won’t say any of that. By contrast, the former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, does understand what’s at stake. In an article for the Telegraph at the weekend, Braverman wrote:
They started with the Jews; there were stern words of disapproval from the top but things only got worse. The Islamist cranks and left-wing extremists then took control of the streets; the police looked meekly on…
The truth is that the Islamists, the extremists and the antisemites are in charge now. They have bullied the Labour Party, they have bullied our institutions, and now they have bullied our country into submission.
But what is our response? Our leaders bury their heads in the sand, preferring the illusion of a “successful multicultural society”, terrified of being called “racist”. But the law has not changed, mass extremism parades itself proudly, campuses remain dangerous places for Jews, and Labour is still rotten to the core…
We cannot allow teachers to be hounded out of schools because a picture of Muhammad was shown, or children to be censured because a Koran was scuffed accidentally. In this country, it is perfectly lawful to criticise any religion or God. One may disagree passionately, but it is not criminal.
None of this is easy. I’ve written about how the protests could be policed better. Others have set out how we can clean up campuses, mosques and councils and, more fundamentally, how we can promote better integration. I may have been sacked because I spoke out against the appeasement of Islamists, but I would do it again because we need to wake up to what we are sleep-walking into: a ghettoised society where free expression and British values are diluted. Where sharia law, the Islamist mob and antisemites take over communities. We need to overcome the fear of being labelled Islamophobic and speak truthfully. Enough of the hand-wringing and apologies. Turning a blind eye to fanatics has got us into this terrible situation: it needs to stop.
This is a crisis. And the fightback must start now, with urgency, if we are to preserve the liberties we cherish and the privileges this country affords us all. If we are to have any chance of saving our country from the mob.
In response to this, Braverman has been accused of being racist and Islamophobic. But of course. The frightening truth of her message was projected onto the cradle of democracy last Wednesday night.
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