This Sunday, 7 September, Britain’s March Against Antisemitism will take place in central London (please attend if you can!).
Tens of thousands will hopefully attend, but even before the first step was taken, the very act of organising has revealed something troubling: the Metropolitan Police’s inconsistent, opaque, and discriminatory handling of Jewish community concerns.
At the centre of the dispute is the BBC’s headquarters on Portland Place – a location directly relevant to Jewish concerns over antisemitism.
Since October 7 the BBC’s reporting has been nothing short of disgraceful – BBC Arabic, along with several notorious anti-Israel BBC journalists – have turned the broadcaster into a megaphone for Hamas – even to the point where one of its documentaries needed to be pulled after it was exposed as a Hamas propaganda film. Few institutions have done more to inject antisemitism into the UK mainstream than our publicly funded state broadcaster.
The Jewish community has every right (and every reason) to protest peacefully outside the BBC headquarters.
But the organisers asked – and the police refused.
Moving Goalposts
I have seen the email exchanges between the organisers CAA, and the police, and the excuses for refusal given by the police were nonsensical.
On 13 August, organisers were told that the BBC was a ‘fundamentally unsuitable starting location.’ This makes no sense – demonstrations start from Portland Place (BBC HQ) all the time.
But the police went even further. They did not just refuse permission for the March Against Antisemitism to start outside the BBC HQ – the organisers were told the march would not even be permitted to walk past the building!
What were the reasons given?
- Parking bays would need to be suspended.
- Regent Street was ‘unsafe.’
- An objection had been raised by ‘the business community.’
Not one of these explanations holds water. Parking bays are suspended all the time for protests, demonstrations, and film crews. Regent Street is one of London’s most heavily policed arteries, and marches pass along it almost weekly without incident.
And ‘the business community’? What is that? Despite repeated requests for clarity, the organisers were given no details of who supposedly objected, what their concerns were, or why those concerns should outweigh the rights of Britain’s Jewish community to demonstrate.
When They Mean the BBC
In an email response on the 14th August, the police explicitly asked for a different route suggestion ‘that avoids the BBC vicinity’. Nothing else – just the BBC.
It doesn’t take much imagination to work out that ‘the business community’ was simply a euphemism for the BBC itself – an institution that clearly did not want thousands of people outside its headquarters highlighting its massive contribution to the dangerous explosion of antisemitism in the UK.
A Grudging Climbdown
The organisers CAA refused to accept this two-tier policing, and as CAA held its ground, the police began to stutter – asking for delays to meetings so they could carefully ‘reflect on the points’ that CAA were making. By 22 August, they had grudgingly agreed that the march could pass the BBC but not start or stop there (pausing outside was described as a ‘red line’). Three days later, on 25 August, they finally allowed a 15-minute stop outside the building.
The logic here is impossible to follow: if safety and parking really were insurmountable issues, how does a 15-minute stop suddenly become permissible?
One Rule For Us, Another For Them
And then came the real kicker. Organisers discovered that just ten days later, on 17 September, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) would be holding a much larger demonstration – starting outside the BBC on Portland Place. The very thing denied to the Jewish community was granted to a group that routinely marches through neighbourhoods chanting inflammatory slogans.
This event is not alone. Portland Place is a frequent gathering place for those who wave a Palestinian flag. This does not just mean a short stopping point. I have been there to experience it myself several times. It can mean 60-90 minutes of gathering and chanting as they practice the ‘river to the sea’ chants that they will proudly sing through London’s streets.
And if you think that is bad? We recently saw the pro-Hezbollah and Iranian proxy, the Islamic Human Rights Commission end their 2025 Al Quds Day rally outside of the BBC’s HQ. This was just six months ago:
How were a gathering of antisemites and pro-Iranian extremists permitted to erect a stage outside Portland Place – and hold numerous speeches there – while Britain’s March Against Antisemitism had to fight every step of the way, to secure far fewer rights?
When challenged by the BBC over permissions granted to the anti-Israel groups, the police replied that ‘every event is assessed on its own merits,’ and tried to defend their actions by claiming they had not yet finalised arrangements with PSC. The permission granted to the Iranian proxy IHRC in March blows that incoherent argument out of the water.
They are treating the Jewish community differently and making up excuses as they go along.
Three serious concerns
This episode highlights three fundamental problems:
1. Flimsy excuses – Vague references to parking and safety, coupled with a mysterious ‘business community’ objection, simply do not withstand scrutiny. The eventual permission for a 15-minute stop exposes how hollow these reasons were.
2. Lack of transparency – Organisers were stonewalled when they asked for specifics. Who exactly in the ‘business community’ objected? Why were their concerns prioritised over a community’s right to protest? No answers were given.
3. Two-tier policing – Jewish concerns are consistently brushed aside, while groups hostile to the Jewish community are indulged. Under Section 12(1)(a) of the Public Order Act, police have powers where a procession may cause ‘serious disruption to the life of the community.’ Yet PSC and IHRC marches are waved through, while a Jewish march outside the BBC is treated as a threat to parking bays.
The bigger picture
This is not just about one march. It is about whether Britain’s Jewish community is treated with fairness and respect by its own police force. The events of the past few weeks suggest otherwise.
On Sunday, thousands will march against antisemitism. But they will also march to demand a simple principle – that in Britain, the rights of the Jewish community are not second-class rights.
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