The effect of the Israel-Hamas war is being felt in the UK as pro-Palestine protesters tried to disrupt the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on Monday morning.
This comes at a time when the UK and the US along with other Western countries like Germany launched an attack on the Huthis in the Red Sea, in what is deemed as defending Israel.
Earlier last year, the UK supplied legal arguments against Myanmar for the Rohingya genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) while it maintained silence regarding Israel.
According to the Metropolitan Police, the pro-Palestine protesters had planned to lock the London Stock Exchange building and prevent trading.
The Met police arrested six people for plotting the disruption of the London Stock Exchange and an attempt to stop it from opening. The Metropolitan Police took action after they received information that the Palestine Action Group was planning to stop the LSE from opening or trading on Monday morning by causing damage and locking on the building
Earlier on Sunday morning, the Met Police took the help of the Merseyside police to nab a 31-year-old man in Liverpool on charges of conspiracy to cause criminal damage. Two more arrests were made from Liverpool later that day. Two women aged 28 and 26 were arrested from Liverpool.
This was followed by a fourth arrest in Brent, North London where a 29-year-old woman was nabbed. Another two arrests were made in Tower Hamlets in East London and Brighton where a 23-year-old and a 27-year-old man were taken into custody.
Speaking about the plot to disrupt the London Stock Exchange, the Met Police Deputy Superintendent Sian Thomas said: "We believe this group was ready to carry out a disruptive and damaging stunt which could have had serious implications had it been carried out successfully."
The Deputy Superintendent further elaborated on the nature of the attack stating they were coordinating with police departments across the UK as the pro-palestine planned it for the whole week.
"Mindful of the suggestion that this was one part of a planned week of action, we are in contact with the City of London police as well as other forces across the UK to ensure that appropriate resources are in place to deal with any disruption in the coming days," Superintendent Thomas added.
The Deputy Superintendent thanked the Daily Express for supplying information regarding the matter, saying that "their willingness to provide the information gleaned from their own investigation". The Met Police revealed all the six persons arrested yesterday will remain in custody
"I'm grateful to the Express for their willingness to provide the information gleaned from their own investigation," Thomas said.
"It was instrumental in helping us intervene successfully. Having only been provided with the material on Friday afternoon we had limited time to act," Thomas added.
The Palestine Action Group who plotted the disruption of the London Stock Exchange wanted to cause huge economic damage by climbing to the top of the revolving doors that are at the front of the building. They had planned to climb onto the doors with red paint-filled fire extinguishers and wanted to lock their necks to the glass entrance with the help of bike locks.
Some other Pro-Palestine activists would have locked themselves in front of the main and back entrances of LSE while they fired red-painted fake bank notes from money guns. The protestors wanted to represent the red-painted bank notes as blood money.
The Metropolitan Police busted the group after a Daily Express reporter posed as a member of the Palestine Action Group to investigate the plan for two months.
The Palestine Action Group said: "The London Stock Exchange raises billions of pounds for apartheid Israel and trades shares in weapons manufacturers, which arm Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people."
"While Britain remains complicit in the brutal colonisation of Palestine, our direct action campaign will not be deterred," they further added.
