The argument was not over whether 7 October was an appalling date for a march: voters on both sides called it provocative, cruel or in terrible taste. No narrowly prevailed, and the sharpest divide was over whether that judgement should be left to the police to enforce.
The most-respected Yes case was blunt: “I would jail the organisers too.” Other Yes voters argued that the date made the march an act of deliberate provocation, with one asking, “Why that date?” For them, the anniversary and the risk of distress to Jewish communities were reasons to stop the march, not merely to criticise it.
The most-respected No case answered with a challenge to the ban itself: “Much better that the world sees people celebrating the anniversary of an attempted genocide.” Other No voters found the choice of date “morally grotesque” but drew a line at prohibition: “bad taste isn’t an illegal act.” Several would have preferred organisers to move the march, even as they opposed banning it.
That distinction places the debate inside a live argument about protest rights: whether police powers should turn on the likely meaning of a march, or on evidence of illegal conduct. Even some of the most severe critics of the march argued that it should be policed firmly rather than prohibited.
The vote’s narrowness fits a debate in which disgust at the date did not settle the question of who should have the power to stop a protest.
63 Opinions
Voted no because the right to protest should be protected, but to hold it on Oct 7 is provocation and the organisers should change the date. If your goal is justice and not provocation, then why hold your march on such a charged date?
Anyone voting No to this is quite probably a far left anti-Semitic extremists.
March for Palestine if you want but to do it on oct 7th is quite frankly disgusting.
Britain needs to get serious about defending liberty in general by restoring order in particular. If they try to march, crush them — obviously.
The right for the pro Palestine mob to choose to protest on October 7 should be upheld. I think large swathes of the country will once more for find their behaviour repugnant.
No it should not be banned but the organisers use your common sense and change it to a couple of days later, or it just looks petty and cruel when people have lost there lives.
Much as I dislike sponsored extremists and the associated thuggery of the left, the right to protest is an essential part of democracy. It should be policed just the same as, for example, an anti-immigration protest. What are the chances of that happening, I wonder?
Everyone has a right to protest. If you ban this protest either because don't agree with it, or you think doing it on the 3rd anniversary of Hamas' attack will cause "offense", then you'll have no right to complain when someone bans a protest that YOU want, e.g. against small boat immigration. No. The right to protest has to be sacrosanct. As Evelyn Beatrice Hall said in her 1906 book: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You have the right to protest and it just shows how disgusting they truly are they are marching to celebrate 7 October
No but should police it as they do anti migrant marches.