Scotland Yard was under fire last night from a former Tory minister after failing to intervene when pro-Palestinian campaigners called for Zionists to be ‘put down’.
Lord Goldsmith claimed ‘violent groups’ have become ‘untouchable and emboldened’ after officers failed to do anything during a demonstration on Friday.
Blasting the Metropolitan Police‘s ‘basic cowardice and stupidity’, the former environment minister and London mayor candidate waded into the ‘two-tier policing’ row, adding that ‘people’s patience is wearing very thin’.
Lord Goldsmith spoke out after video from an anti-Israel demonstration in Swiss Cottage, North London, on Friday night showed police officers standing by as a female demonstrator told a crowd: ‘These people are terminally deranged and the sickness is Zionism. And it’s incurable so they just need to be put down perhaps.’
Responding to the video on X (formerly Twitter), an account for the local Metropolitan Police division wrote: ‘The language in this video is unacceptable. Officers are conducting a thorough investigation but we understand and acknowledge concerns raised about the apparent lack of immediate action by officers present.
‘We are reviewing the circumstances to understand what happened.’
But Lord Goldsmith, 49, said police were simply too frightened to arrest pro-Palestinian demonstrators, writing on social media: ‘There’s nothing to investigate.
‘It’s all there, clear as daylight and unarguable – police (and CPS) policy is two-tier. We see it every single week.
Police are under fire for failing to act as pro-Palestinian demonstrators called for Zionists to be ‘put down’ at a protest in central London on Friday night
Lord Goldsmith criticised ‘two-tier’ policing policies and said ‘basic cowardice and stupidity’ was behind the failure to take action
Lord Goldsmith hit out at ‘stupid and self defeating’ policy which he said is making threatening groups ‘untouchable and emboldened’
‘It is partly about prejudice and politicisation, but mostly it is the result of basic cowardice and stupidity.
‘Why are certain crowds allowed to wave terror flags, chant songs of genocide, wave swastikas? Because stopping them might ‘inflame’ things. Because of ‘community tensions’.
‘In other words, the more violent, aggressive, threatening groups become, the safer they are. They become untouchable and emboldened.’
The video on Friday night was taken by the campaign group Stop the Hate which has worked to expose antisemitism and terrorist support on pro-Palestine demonstrations which started after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
For most of the year there have been weekly pro-Palestine demonstrations in Swiss Cottage on Friday evenings because it is near the home of the Israeli ambassador.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside Jewish community centre JW3 last month while the venue was hosting a conference on the future of Israel and the Middle East
Protesters at the entrance to the centre holding a large banner with the message ‘Stop arming Israel, stop the genocide, save Palestine
The same group of protesters were criticised earlier this month for targeting a Jewish community centre in which delegates at peace conference were called ‘baby-killer’ and ‘apartheid lover’.
A spokesman for Stop the Hate said: ‘That multiple officers saw nothing problematic with a speech calling for Zionists to be put down is a sad indictment of the state of policing in London.
‘We have been warning for months that police inaction on antisemitism was creating an environment of impunity that is emboldening antisemites to target a Jewish area, creating serious security issues for the local Jewish community. How many hate crimes and terrorism offences need to be committed at a protest for it to be shut down?’
The Metropolitan Police refused to comment further.