Live updates: Follow the latest news on Israel-Gaza
This weekend's pro-Palestine march in central London is set to be one of the biggest and most controversial political protests in recent British history.
Against the backdrop of a febrile political atmosphere that has threatened to derail the march, police and organisers have, however, been sitting down to carefully and calmly plan the event.
The organisers are predicting a turnout of 500,000, which would make it the UK’s biggest demonstration since 2003, when an estimated one million people marched in opposition to the invasion of Iraq.
It would also be one of the largest political marches in British political history, and much larger than the four previous Saturday protests against Israel's military action in Gaza, which have seen turnouts of about 100,000.
The groups who have come together to organise the event, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al Aqsa, the Stop the War Coalition, Palestinian Forum in Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, have all met police to plan a new route for the demonstration.
Instead of finishing at the Cenotaph war memorial, where the main Remembrance Day event takes place in central London, the protest will finish at the US embassy, tucked away in an area on the south bank of the River Thames.
Metropolitan Police has said almost 2,000 officers will be on duty for the event and roads around the back of the embassy have been declared a no-go area, along with the area around the Cenotaph. Any protesters could be arrested.
The Cenotaph will also have a dedicated 24-hour police presence which will remain in place until the conclusion of Remembrance Day events on Sunday amid concerns it could be a flashpoint for confrontations with far-right counter-demonstrators.
At the heart of the controversy is whether the march should have been allowed to take place at time when the UK remembers its war dead, a row reignited by Home Secretary Suella Braverman using a newspaper article to accuse the police of showing favouritism.
Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has stood firm in the face of criticism and insisted there is not enough firm intelligence of a “threat of serious disorder” to warrant a ban.
Away from the row, the police and the march’s organisers sat down and worked through the details of the route. But progress has not been helped by the political row, says Ben Jamal, director of PSC.
“There are logistical issues, which roads need to be closed, and a series of negotiations with the police, and that had become even more crucial with the numbers of people turning up,” he told The National.
As part of on-going negotiations, the organisers themselves identified Armistice Day over a week ago as being an event the march would clash with so offered an alternative route to the embassy, he explained.
But the talks were put on hold when the Met Police, caught up in the political row after the Home Secretary called the demonstrators “hate marchers”, asked that the march not go ahead.
“So we had a delay in that process, a couple of days where discussions were not taking place, which were crucial,” Mr Jamal said.
“It’s a difficult space to march to and we already had a sense that the numbers were going to be huge but because [the police] were fending off the other stuff after Suella Braverman had stepped in and they didn’t know if it was going to be postponed, it put a hold on all of those discussions.”
Mr Jamal said there had not been time for the organisers' request about how the end of the march could be managed to be discussed with police.
“So what Braverman’s done is created discord, defamed a whole bunch of people marching for peace but made the job of the police and ourselves much harder,” he said.
“And of course she has personal responsibility for public safety, so it's pretty disgraceful, to be honest.”
Graham Wettone, a former Met officer and expert in public order policing, explained to The National the planning that goes into marches.
“The organisers for the event will come in to, normally, Scotland Yard, and they’ll sit down around a table with the public order planning team,” Mr Wettone said.
“It's been a long-established practice that the Met’s public order planning team will always try and get event organisers to come in and sit down and agree meeting points, routes, duration, stewarding, barriers, traffic, etc, etc.
“They will say to them 'you can go here but we’re not going to let you go over there' and there will conditions under the Public Order Act about where you can go on the margins of the march.”
He said the Met has been working with groups such as the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition and Muslim Association of Britain “for decades”.
“When I was at the Yard in the 2000s, we had these organisers coming in back then, so there’s a long-established relationship between these protest organisers and the police.
“I've worked alongside stewards on Stop the War and PSC demos where the stewards have actually stepped in and almost done a policing job to keep those on the march route reasonably peaceful.”
Mr Wettone said it was clear from public statements made by protest organisers that they wanted to avoid central London and Armistice Day events.
While not naming Ms Braverman directly, he said the atmosphere running up to the march had not been helpful to the police in preventing disorder.
“A lot of this has been exaggerated, sadly by some politicians who should know better, and ramped up by people in the public eye and, dare I say it, by sections of the media,” he said.
Meanwhile protesters are getting ready to converge in central London, with Stop The War saying there are waiting lists for buses it is organising.
The Met Commissioner himself praised march organisers, saying they showed “complete willingness to stay away from the Cenotaph and Whitehall and have no intention of disrupting the nation’s remembrance events”.
He said there has been “escalation of violence and criminality” from fringe groups who have attached themselves to the demonstrations “despite some key organisers working positively with us”.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
SPECS
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Brief scores:
Juventus 3
Dybala 6', Bonucci 17', Ronaldo 63'
Frosinone 0
FIXTURES
Monday, January 28
Iran v Japan, Hazza bin Zayed Stadium (6pm)
Tuesday, January 29
UAEv Qatar, Mohamed Bin Zayed Stadium (6pm)
Friday, February 1
Final, Zayed Sports City Stadium (6pm)
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
Martin Sabbagh profile
Job: CEO JCDecaux Middle East
In the role: Since January 2015
Lives: In the UAE
Background: M&A, investment banking
Studied: Corporate finance
The%20specs
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Squads
Pakistan: Sarfaraz Ahmed (c), Babar Azam (vc), Abid Ali, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Sohail, Mohammad Hasnain, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Shadab Khan, Usman Shinwari, Wahab Riaz
Sri Lanka: Lahiru Thirimanne (c), Danushka Gunathilaka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Avishka Fernando, Oshada Fernando, Shehan Jayasuriya, Dasun Shanaka, Minod Bhanuka, Angelo Perera, Wanindu Hasaranga, Lakshan Sandakan, Nuwan Pradeep, Isuru Udana, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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SPECS
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Coming soon
Torno Subito by Massimo Bottura
When the W Dubai – The Palm hotel opens at the end of this year, one of the highlights will be Massimo Bottura’s new restaurant, Torno Subito, which promises “to take guests on a journey back to 1960s Italy”. It is the three Michelinstarred chef’s first venture in Dubai and should be every bit as ambitious as you would expect from the man whose restaurant in Italy, Osteria Francescana, was crowned number one in this year’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Akira Back Dubai
Another exciting opening at the W Dubai – The Palm hotel is South Korean chef Akira Back’s new restaurant, which will continue to showcase some of the finest Asian food in the world. Back, whose Seoul restaurant, Dosa, won a Michelin star last year, describes his menu as, “an innovative Japanese cuisine prepared with a Korean accent”.
Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
The highly experimental chef, whose dishes are as much about spectacle as taste, opens his first restaurant in Dubai next year. Housed at The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal will feature contemporary twists on recipes that date back to the 1300s, including goats’ milk cheesecake. Always remember with a Blumenthal dish: nothing is quite as it seems.
'C'mon C'mon'
Director:Mike Mills
Stars:Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffmann, Woody Norman
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The biog
Marital status: Separated with two young daughters
Education: Master's degree from American Univeristy of Cairo
Favourite book: That Is How They Defeat Despair by Salwa Aladian
Favourite Motto: Their happiness is your happiness
Goal: For Nefsy to become his legacy long after he is gon
What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
The Vile
Starring: Bdoor Mohammad, Jasem Alkharraz, Iman Tarik, Sarah Taibah
Director: Majid Al Ansari
Rating: 4/5
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
New UK refugee system
- A new “core protection” for refugees moving from permanent to a more basic, temporary protection
- Shortened leave to remain - refugees will receive 30 months instead of five years
- A longer path to settlement with no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain
- To encourage refugees to integrate the government will encourage them to out of the core protection route wherever possible.
- Under core protection there will be no automatic right to family reunion
- Refugees will have a reduced right to public funds
