Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his close ally John McDonnell will not face any charges as part of the police investigation into breaches of conditions imposed on a pro-Palestine rally in January.
The left-wing MPs were interviewed under police caution, which they volunteered to do, as part of an investigation into apparent breaches of the Public Order Act conditions.
Corbyn said the police’s decision was “a victory for the right to demonstrate against genocide”, while McDonnell posted on X that: “If marching in a peaceful protest has now become even considered potentially to be a crime in our country we have entered a truly worrying political moment.”
The police had imposed restrictions that barred protesters from entering an area covering the BBC’s New Broadcasting House and the nearby Central Synagogue.
At the time, police said they had imposed conditions “taking into account the cumulative impact of the prolonged period of protest on Jewish Londoners, particularly when protests are in the vicinity of synagogues often on Saturdays, the Jewish holy day”.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told the JC: “No further action will be taken against nine people who were interviewed as part of an investigation into alleged breaches of Public Order Act conditions during a protest on Saturday, 18 January.
“The decision in two cases was taken following a review of the evidence by the Crown Prosecution Service, while the remaining seven cases were decided on by police officers.”
The JC understands that the CPS’s review found that while the restrictions were well publicised, the specific sequence of events on the ground on the during the protest, notably the lifting of the police cordon at the top of Whitehall which was apparently necessary due to the size of the crowd, meant that there was no realistic prospect of a conviction.
Prior to the demonstration, 46 MPs, including Corbyn, McDonnell and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer signed a parliamentary motion that cast doubt on the police’s analysis of the threat to the Jewish community.
Early Day Motion 633 rejected “the Metropolitan Police’s claim the march could cause disruption to a nearby synagogue”, and claimed that “the Metropolitan Police themselves have acknowledged that there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the previous marches for Palestine, and that thousands of Jewish people have been joining the protests, many of them part of an organised Jewish bloc”.
Speaking to Parliament’s the House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry on community cohesion in March, the head of the Antisemitism Policy Trust Danny Stone said he interpreted the motion as an accusation of dishonesty against the Jewish community.
“It said there has been no impact on synagogues and the Met Police is not being straight with you. I interpreted that as saying that the Jewish community is lying about this,” he told MPs on 19 March.
Jewish communal groups, including the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council, had thanked the police for imposing restrictions on the demonstration.
Also in March, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, told CST’s annual dinner that as part of the government’s Crime and Policing Bill currently going through Parliament, they would bring in new restrictions to prevent aggressive demonstrations near places of worship.
Cooper said the new legislation would “give the police total clarity” and that “where a protest has an intimidating effect, such that it prevents people from accessing or attending their place of worship, the full range of public order conditions will be available for the police to use. Because everybody has a right to live in freedom from fear.”
She also said that there was no shying away from the fact that over the last 18 months” worshipers at Central Synagogue, Western Marble Arch and Westminster had been “hugely disrupted by protest activity”.
“On too many occasions, Shabbat services have been cancelled and people have stayed at home – worried to travel and attend shul as they normally would.”
She later added that although “protest and freedom of expression are cornerstones of our democracy, and of course that must always be protected... the right to protest is not the right to intimidate”.
