Should the Met police ban the March for Gaza planned for 7 October 2026?
The Metropolitan Police has urged organisers of a small student-led pro-Palestine march planned for 7 October 2026 – the third anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel – to change the date, citing likely distress to Jewish students and staff. The march, expected to involve around 300 people from King's College London to UCL, is not currently banned; police say they will impose conditions on route and timing if it proceeds and will act on any hate crime or breaches. Similar marches have taken place on or near the anniversary in prior years amid ongoing Israel-Gaza tensions.
9 Opinions
We have seen regularly that there is no such thing as a peaceful march for Gaza. Every time, louts are screaming for the eradication of the Jewish race. Such rhetoric should never be tolerated on our streets. It most certainly wouldn't be coming from anyone other than the Islamists.
Marching on the anniversary of the massacre is morally grotesque, but in a free country, bad taste isn’t an illegal act. Public Order Act bans require imminent, uncontrollable violence... not just 300 students behaving awfully. It does need to be policed within an inch of its life and strict routes dictated and immediate detaining of those practicing hate speech.
How any right minded person could even consider this march as an appropriate action on this date is beyond me. The UK clearly has issues with indoctrination of our youth and antisemitism that we need to address.
Yes, absolutely inappropriate. They have powers to do it, do they have the balls?
Any Jewish students and staff who feel “distressed” over the march should ask themselves why that is, and why they aren’t joining it in condemning and disowning a genocide that is being carried out in their name.
Much better that the world sees people celebrating the anniversary of an attempted genocide.