Arresting a Chant Won’t Arrest the Problem |
When two of Britain’s most senior police leaders announce a tougher line on chants and placards such as “globalise the intifada,” it is tempting to file it under “about time” and move on. In one sense, it is exactly that: a welcome acknowledgement that words used on our streets are not neutral, that context matters, and that intimidation has real-world consequences. The Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police have explicitly said they will “act decisively and make arrests” where this slogan is used at future protests or in a targeted way.
But in another sense, the announcement raises a harder question: what, precisely, has been solved?
The police are candid about the environment that prompted this shift. Their joint statement describes a surge in antisemitic hate crime since 2023, intensified protests, rising online abuse, and a level of fear that forces Jewish children to attend schools “behind fences” with security and routine patrols – an abnormality no democratic society should accept as a permanent condition. The police also state that “current laws are inadequate” and welcome the Home Secretary’s decision to commission Lord Ken Macdonald KC to review public order and hate crime legislation.
That admission – laws inadequate – is the crux. Because if the law is inadequate, then arrests, however symbolically satisfying, may be little more than a pressure-release valve.
The police are not prosecutors. Arrest is not charge; charge is not prosecution; prosecution is not conviction. The Guardian reports that police chiefs said they have “consistently been advised by the CPS” that many phrases causing fear in Jewish communities do not meet prosecution thresholds; the CPS itself did not confirm that the new approach will hold up in court.
This is not a technical quibble. It goes to the heart of whether the decision is a genuine operational breakthrough or an attempt to demonstrate responsiveness – an appearance of care without the machinery to deliver lasting results.
If officers arrest more demonstrators but cases........