Rishi Sunak has vowed to hold the Metropolitan police commissioner, Mark Rowley, “accountable” for his defiance of demands for a ban on a pro-Palestinian march in London planned for Armistice Day.
Speaking before a hastily organised meeting with the police chief, the prime minister, during a visit to a school in Lincolnshire, notably failed to endorse Rowley’s Monday evening announcement.
“This is a decision that the Metropolitan police commissioner has made,” Sunak told reporters. “He has said that he can ensure that we safeguard remembrance for the country this weekend as well as keep the public safe.
“Now, my job is to hold him accountable for that. We’ve asked the police for information on how they will ensure that this happens. I’ll be meeting the Metropolitan police commissioner later today to discuss this. More broadly, my view is that these marches are disrespectful and that’s what I’ll be discussing with the police commissioner later today.”
After being summoned to the emergency meeting with the prime minister, Rowley pulled out of speaking at an event organised by the Institute for Government where he was due to discuss standards in policing.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the IFG said: “Today’s event with Sir Mark Rowley has been postponed. We will announce a rescheduled date and time soon. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
A Downing Street spokesperson said the Met’s position on the pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day was “not the end point” and could be kept under review “as the intelligence picture evolves throughout the week”.
“The threshold as published in law is for the Met commissioner to make a judgment based on the advice he receives,” he said. “It’s important to note obviously this is not the end point. They can keep it under review as the intelligence picture evolves throughout the week.”
The spokesperson added that operations to keep people safe must be “robust” and said the prime minister “continues to urge organisers to reconsider” the march.
Downing Street would not say whether the government would overrule the Met’s decision.
Asked whether it would intervene, the official said: “The Met are operationally independent and obviously the focus on the discussion today is about their approach. It is a poignant weekend of remembrance where people from across the UK come together. Planning a march to coincide with that which, based on previous marches, may include incidents of expressing racial hatred, for which there were a number of arrests last weekend, would be provocative and disrespectful.”
The government remains hopeful that Rowley will be forced by events to reverse his decision.
A Whitehall source said Rowley would be asked to explain the Met’s position.
Reacting to the decision to call Rowley to a meeting, Lord Soames, the former Tory minister and grandson of Winston Churchill, told the Guardian that the government should be “very careful” about “playing politics” with fundamental British freedoms.
“The government needs to proceed extremely carefully in this matter. Tens of millions of people died in two world wars so that British people have the right and freedom to express their beliefs. You cannot just decide that this is not the case and put the head of the Met under this kind of pressure.
“If the Met chief, who I have a great deal of time for, says there is no good reason to ban the march, there is no good reason for banning the march. Most of the people who plan to attend the march have a point to make and plan to do so peacefully – if a small number of people cause trouble, the police have the powers to deal with it.
“The government needs to be very careful to make sure they do not look as if they are playing politics. They need to be very careful that this is not some sort of gimmick. Operational matters are for the commissioner.
“It is his judgment that should count and I would caution the government about eroding freedoms.”
Earlier, the health secretary, Steve Barclay, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that there would be further discussions over a potential ban.
He said: “The government thinks it is provocative to have these marches on Saturday, on Armistice Day; it is a very sacred day where the whole country comes together to remember those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to give us the freedom to protest, the freedom to express different views the rest of the year.
“So, I don’t think it’s the right day for those but we also recognise there is a legal process, there is a legal threshold, which is what the Metropolitan police have been looking at. There’ll be further discussions in regard of whether that legal threshold has been met. But the … the prime minister has been very clear that we think it’s provocative.”
A spokesperson for the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, told the Guardian: “The mayor of London has full confidence in Sir Mark Rowley.”
Under section 13 of the 1986 Public Order Act, a chief constable can apply to the home secretary to prohibit public processions to avoid serious public disorder.
The Met had on Monday appealed for organisers to postpone the march, citing a risk of violence. But in a statement in which Rowley had acknowledged the demands for him to stop Saturday’s procession, he said on Tuesday that there was insufficient intelligence to provide grounds for a ban.
He said: “Many have called for us to use this power to ban a planned march by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Saturday. But the use of this power is incredibly rare and must be based on intelligence which suggests there will be a real threat of serious disorder and no other way for police to manage the event.”
Rowley had also stressed the importance of an “independent police service … focused simply on the law and the facts in front of us”, despite a chorus of cabinet ministers – including the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and the justice secretary, Alex Chalk – insisting in recent days that the march should not go ahead.
It is understood that Braverman was also annoyed by criticism by Rowley of her description of the protests as “hate marches”.
