Should pro-Palestine marches be banned in wake of Golders Green attack?

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]45year-old man has been charged this morning with two counts of attempted murder after two Jewish men were stabbed in gold on Wednesday. Now, in the wake of those attacks, there have been renewed calls for a crackdown on pro Palestinian marchers. Earlier, Sir um Sir Mark Roley, the chief of the Met Police, told this program that it was impossible in his view to completely stop a protest outright. Well, we're joined by former director of communications for Jeremy Corbyn, James Snder. Good to see you this morning. Who thinks it's a disgrace the state would try to restrict people's democratic rights. And also hoping to speak to Lord Man, the government's independent advisor on anti-semitism, who thinks cracking down on the marches would send a much needed sign of support to the Jewish community. Um let's speak to you Lord Ma'am because you are the government's independent adviser on anti-semitism.

[00:01:02]Why do you feel this is time for a pause and how does it sit with you that that that would need a change in law and all the ramifications?

[00:01:15]All we need to do is stop the call the support for terror organizations and the call for the Jewish community and Jewish people to be targeted and I'm in one with uh uh some role.

[00:01:30]>> Ah we seem to have lost him. We heard a little bit of Lord man's point and of course we will get him back up on that camera line. James Schneider is here.

[00:01:39]you have a very different view and I think it's obviously important for viewers to know you are Jewish and that you worked with Jeremy Corbyn um and so you come at a cross-section of all sorts of different things there your personal life your politics and so on but you don't believe that Lord man is right about this do you >> no I think he's completely wrong and I'll get to the stuff about democratic society and right to protest and opposition to the crimes of Israel and Britain's support for them uh in Palestine. But first of all, if you're thinking about keeping Jewish people safe, which should be a priority, the focus should be on the policing that is going to do that. Cancelling other people's right to protest isn't going to keep a single person safe. The marches are not a threat to Jewish people.

[00:02:27]There's not been a single arrest for any violence towards any Jewish people.

[00:02:30]>> Not violence, but language, slogans, pictures of paragliders being pinned to people's jackets. that has been picked up and that is offensive, is it not? And frightening.

[00:02:40]>> Offensive and frightening. Some people may find it offensive and some people may find that frightening, but that does not mean that those are a risk to Jewish people. And again, let's let's focus let's focus on what should the state's priorities be. You've got a pretty small area of London that has seen repeated attacks over the recent weeks and yet the response to this is not how are we going to stop these attacks. Who are the people who might might, you know, possibly have been referred to prevent that we should be uh looking at.

[00:03:13]Instead, we still have a state pursuing uh terrorist cases against 2,700 peaceful protesters for holding up signs with sevenword placards and trying to shut down >> for supporting Palestine action the group that was then prescribed as a >> for supporting terrorist pe you know peaceful protesters holding up placards no threat to Jewish people and then trying to cancel the annual Nakba day protest while at the same time a Tommy Robinson protest will be will be fined.

[00:03:42]to to carry on which poses absolutely no threat to Jewish people.

[00:03:48]>> So um sir law man we're going to try and get back and he was about to quote Samar Roelly who we've had on this program this morning. One of the concerns because you specifically say we need to look at police how police manage these.

[00:04:03]One of his concerns he flagged on this program is his concerns with where these protests take place. So they could take place anywhere. He's asking why he gets submitted these protests in areas where it's close to a synagogue for instance or where it's close to areas where there's a large concentration of the small population of Jewish people in this country. And he says that makes it very hard to believe and why would they want to do that? and he needs support from the law because he can't be listening to every conversation. And we've seen an escalation, haven't we?

[00:04:46]There's no doubt there's been an escalation of anti-semitic attacks. And if you're now in the situation where in daylight two people are stabbed because they were displaying signs that somebody might see and identify as Jewish, a different approach, I think Ramper summed it up, perhaps a bolder and braver approach to managing these marches might be needed. So how would you enable the police to deal with that?

[00:05:12]It's not the 2,000 protests across the country, is it? what's hard for them is to manage it in these areas and why >> so I find his comments a bit strange because I the the ones that I know about are the 35 major national marches that have taken place uh since October 2023 in central London >> and my understanding is that one of those was near a synagogue not me because the synagogue is near the BBC and it was meant to start that protest was meant to start at the BBC or end at the BBC I can't remember which one that was not deliberately trying to uh there was no protest at a synagogue. There's not an attempt to protest a synagogue and there in all 35 of those national marches. There's not been a single arrest for any activity that's happened anywhere near Lord Man is back. Let's let's I don't know how much of that Lord Man you could hear. Um let's just check that you are there.

[00:06:08]>> Can you hear us?

[00:06:09]>> I am there. Yes.

[00:06:09]>> Yeah. Um, James was just clearly responding there to Sir Roy's comments that I think you were listening to earlier on the program about the fact that the difficulty for the police is that some of these pro uh pro Palestinian marches are in in some people to be deliberately near synagogues and that in itself is is a problem for policing >> and and and and repeatedly so I was one of the organizers of the antiparite demonstrations at the heart of anti-aparttheide. one of the people who went in and negotiated the roots and the marches with the police and we policed our own marches to stop extremists taking them over and that's not happening with these marches. So there's plenty of decent people going in these marches having their viewpoint, but as well there are extremists and extremists are dominating the narrative of the marches calling for attacks on Jewish people supporting terror organizations.

[00:07:06]Now that's not the majority of marches.

[00:07:08]Of course it isn't. It's a tiny group within it, but it's a wellorganized group within it and it's a dominant group within it. And the people organizing the marches have not been prepared to do anything about it. So it's right and proper that the police want to do something about it. And when we organized those marches for anti-apartid, we had different tactics at different times. We didn't incessantly march the same way. We we responded to what the police asked for in order to get our point across. We were certain.

[00:07:41]>> Can we just let James respond to those specific points? We definitely want to hear from you, Lord. man because our communication problems have made it difficult. But just those points before you make more. James, your response.

[00:07:51]>> I mean, they're flatly not true. The point about targeting synagogues is flatly not true. The idea that there's a dominant group that has been calling for support for terrorism and attacks on Jews.

[00:08:01]>> He said a small group.

[00:08:02]>> He said dominant though. He said small but dominant. Right. So a dominant group is a supposedly calling for uh support for terrorism and uh attacks on Jews.

[00:08:13]flatly untrue. We need to keep Jewish people safe. Saying flat lies about people who are protesting British state policy is not going to keep Jewish people safe.

[00:08:24]>> Can I let law come back on that? Is that untrue?

[00:08:28]>> We see what people we hear what people say on the demonstrations. We see the placards.

[00:08:35]>> Everyone can see that. Um is living in a parallel universe. I actually >> Jewish people Jewish people have then to go home and their kids then get abuse on the bus. They get abuse when they go to school. They get abuse when they're playing football or other sports. And it pervades all ways of life of the Jewish community. And these organizations who organize the demonstrations, they've been silent when there's been a war on the Jewish community with firebombs, with knife attacks, with this series of onslaught on the Jewish community. All these organizations haven't done the slightest to demonstrate to oppose what's happening to the Jewish community. And it it's it's toxic the way in which people are calling for globalizer inifada is interpreted by some people as go attack Jewish people across the world. And it's happening across the world and it's happening in our country. And it's right and proper that the extremists are taken out. And if you're not prepared to do it in your demonstrations, it's right and proper that the police do it.

[00:09:51]>> James, final word. I I I find everything he's saying particularly, but I also interested in who the so so-called extremists were that they were keeping out of the uh anti-aparttheide protest given at the time the British state said that the ANC and Nelson Mandela were terrorists. So I do find that a kind of baffling replay of of history, but the idea were terrorists.

[00:10:12]>> You obviously weren't there.

[00:10:14]>> We didn't.

[00:10:14]>> No. And you're obviously not in these protests here. I I have been to I've been to these marches which are peaceful expressions of hundreds of thousands >> peaceful around where you are. You can't be in every moment in every conversation in every thing that is uttered in those.

[00:10:31]You have to be honest. You can't be in all places at all times at all.

[00:10:34]>> No, no one can be in all places at all times. What we are asking is two things.

[00:10:38]The first is will shutting down marches make Jewish people say >> which is clearly what everybody here wants. You both want that. We all want that. The answer I am saying is plainly no it will not and it is a distraction.

[00:10:51]The second point the second point is it politically legitimate to crack down on the rights to protest for people including Jewish people who are opposed to the uh the crimes that the British state is supporting >> hiding from the extremist. Mr. >> Schneider, >> you're hiding from the extremists because you're not prepared to control them. You're not prepared to control those people who are abusing and inciting others to abuse and attack the Jewish community.

[00:11:19]>> Man, you made very, very strong points.

[00:11:21]I'm so glad that we got to hear those points. And James, I did come back to you for a final word, but then there was a lot of final words, so we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.