LONDON — Pro-Palestine protests are to continue across the UK on Saturday after Rishi Sunak’s warning that democracy was being targeted by “extremists”.
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In an address to the nation on Friday, the British prime minister spoke about “forces here at home trying to tear us apart”, in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks by Hamas against Israel.
Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Sunak said “our democracy itself is a target” and decried a recent “shocking increase in extremist disruption and criminality”.
He described the victory of George Galloway in the Rochdale byelection as “beyond alarming”. He also spoke directly to those taking part in pro-Palestine protests, urging organisers to demonstrate peacefully and “with empathy”.
He said he had told senior police chiefs the public expected the protests to be policed rather than simply managed.
Sunak’s comments were also criticised, particularly by those he took aim at, including Galloway, who secured almost 40 percent of the vote in a constituency that has a strong Muslim population, The Guardian reported.
Galloway accused Sunak of using Britain’s Muslim population as a “whipping boy” and treating them as “second-class voters”.
“And that is what he was doing in Downing Street today, a despicable and dangerous thing,” said the newly elected MP, who has been a divisive figure in British politics in recent decades.
“And secondly, alarmed at the growing support for Palestine, for Gaza in Britain, the attempt is being made to paint these peaceful demonstrators – almost always demonstrating without a single arrest being made, without so much as a paper cup being dropped – they are trying to conflate peaceful democratic protest in Britain with some kind of mob, with some kind of violence and intimidation.”
The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said: “The British people will take no lessons from a prime minister and Conservative party who have sowed the seeds of division for years.”
Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, responded to the prime minister’s address by suggesting he “look in the mirror” and expel some senior MPs from his party.
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