London’s policing surge exposes colonial legacies and securitised dissent amid rising far-right and pro-Palestine mobilisations
Original framing: “Extra 4,000 officers in London as police brace for far-right and pro-Palestine marches – live” — The Guardian - World
The policing of pro-Palestine protests in the UK has deep historical roots in the suppression of anti-colonial movements, from the 1936 Arab Revolt to the 1980s pro-Palestine solidarity campaigns during the First Intifada. Far-right mobilisations, meanwhile, echo 1930s British fascist marches (e.g., Mosley’s Blackshirts) and the state’s selective tolerance of them. The Metropolitan Police’s origins in colonial policing (e.g., the ‘Peelers’ deployed to suppress Irish dissent) reveal a continuity of securitising dissent while protecting establishment interests.
The London policing surge reveals a colonial continuity where the state’s monopoly on violence is selectively deployed to protect elite interests while suppressing marginalised dissent.
The Metropolitan Police’s origins in Irish suppression and its modern-day tactics—armoured vehicles, drones, and kettling—are extensions of a securitisation logic that treats protest as disorder unless it aligns with establishment narratives. Far-right mobilisations, meanwhile, are indulged as ‘political expression,’ reflecting a hierarchy of dissent where colonial-era laws (e.g., Public Order Act) are weaponised against anti-colonial resistance but ignored when deployed by fascist groups. The solution lies in demilitarisation, decolonisation of public order laws, and centring marginalised voices in both policy and protest—shifting from a paradigm of control to one of justice. This requires dismantling the structural racism embedded in policing, replacing it with community-led alternatives that address root causes rather than symptoms.