Palestine coalition statement on UKIP march

The Palestine coalition is deeply concerned by the decision by the Met police to permit a UKIP march to end in Trafalgar Square tomorrow (31 Jan), not far from where our national march for Palestine will be passing.

The UKIP march, though expected to be small, should not be allowed anywhere near our Palestine march. The UKIP march has already been banned twice from its originally planned location in Tower Hamlets, where it had a clear intention to provoke and possibly attack local residents, in particular members of the Muslim community. UKIP has an openly hostile, racist and antagonistic positioning towards Muslims and members of ethnic minorities in Britain, including Palestinians, as well as towards the wider anti-racist movement. The current UKIP leader who has called for their march tomorrow has appeared to use the Nazi salute on marches before.

It is therefore extremely irresponsible for the police to have rerouted this racist march to a location so close to our Palestine march, with the particular knowledge of the usual makeup of the Palestine marches including large numbers of Palestinians, Muslims, Jews and anti-racist campaigners, all of whom have been prime targets of UKIP’s hateful rhetoric and actions.

Whilst we know that the UKIP march is likely to be very small in numbers, it will almost certainly be actively hostile towards our marchers, creating a more difficult situation for us to manage, as well as for the police themselves. It is inexplicable that the police are facilitating a last minute request by a small number of UKIP far-right protesters to march down the length of Oxford Street before their end point close to our march. The police seem to be giving unprecedented space and permission to a group of far-right protesters, in contrast to severe restrictions that they have continually placed on the peaceful, diverse and family friendly Palestine marches which are organised far in advance.

We have written to the Met challenging this outrageous decision and are calling on them to re-route the UKIP march. We will continue our march tomorrow with extra measures in place to ensure the safety of those who participate. As Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people continue despite the so-called ceasefire, we will march in our thousands tomorrow to show the Trump administration that there will be global resistance to its colonial ‘Board of Peace’, to show the British government that we will not stop campaigning until it ends its complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide, and to show the Palestinian people that we will not abandon them, and will continue to build our solidarity movement for justice and freedom for Palestine.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Palestinian Forum in Britain

Friends of Al-Aqsa

Stop the War Coalition

Muslim Association of Britain

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament