MET Police Cop Out

(Photograph: Surrey County Council News, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Don’t be fooled by the UK constabulary’s failure to engage when it comes to jihad – that peaceful, ‘inner struggle’ afflicting Muslims as they agonise over Weetabix or Cheerios at the breakfast table; it’s just that plod understands the nuances of these matters better than you do. If you’re ever in the mood for a bit of police brutality, you won’t have to look very far. Take your pick from the 10,000 riot police on standby over non-existent Brexit skirmishes; the heavy-handed tactics employed by officers breaking up the Sarah Everard vigil (the poor woman abducted, raped and murdered by a serving officer); or the ‘take no prisoners’ approach police favoured when dealing with lockdown protestors.

My personal favourite however was the Coronation of King Charles III earlier this year, when our usually gutless gendarmerie suddenly sprung into action. A total of 52 arrests were made, which the Metropolitan Police justified by “the potential risk to public safety”. In a statement, the MET confirmed they had information that individuals “would attempt to deface public monuments with paint, breach barriers and disrupt the official movements” – in other words, a relaxing Sunday afternoon with Just Stop Oil or Black Lives Matter, where the simpering constables are traditionally on-hand to make the tea and genuflect. Still, it’s good to clarify that public order offences, a breach of the peace, and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance are sufficient grounds for arrest.

Thank God the officers in attendance at the pro-Palestine protests in London over the weekend weren’t faced with anything quite so challenging; it was just a good old-fashioned bit of Jew-bashing: calls for jihad from those charming folk of Hizb ut-Tahrir (an organisation so extreme, it’s proscribed in almost all Arab countries):

https://x.com/AmyMek/status/1715764734807695853?s=20

And chants of “Allah hu Akbar… the state of Islam… God’s curse be upon the infidels… God’s curse be upon the Jews… God’s curse be upon Israel”, from a lovely chap who appeared to be sporting the ISIS flag (although, Prof Peter Neumann of King’s College London confirmed the flag in question “is often used by jihadists, but not exclusively so.”:

https://x.com/metpoliceuk/status/1715778905326366916?s=20

It’s a mercy that things didn’t really get out of hand, and no one got misgendered.

As is their wont, the Old Bill seemed content to ignore the criminal and police the peaceful. They didn’t spot any blatant support for terrorist organisations, but they did notice the last remaining native Englishmen provocatively brandishing the flag of St George in central London – an overt ‘racist’ display if ever there was one: https://x.com/DouglasKMurray/status/1716164385192673671?s=20

Of course, it’s necessary at these times to protect the peaceful terrorists from those radical Jews. The police therefore, very sensibly instructed the vans displaying Israeli hostages taken by Hamas to take their incitement elsewhere. They also shut down the 30,000-strong demonstrators who wished to show solidarity with Israel in Golders Green, after plod intercepted tweets calling upon “brothers to make their way” there; well, you can’t be too careful can you?

Policing everything except crime (to steal a line from the great Mark Steyn), has long-since been the modus operandi of the MET. If there’s a sniff of silent prayer, autistic teens who think you look like their “lesbian nana”, or any unchecked “thinking” going on in your vicinity, fear not – six burly officers will be in attendance in five minutes flat. But when it comes to Islamic extremism, your average MET wet-wipe couldn’t find a terrorist sympathiser in Tower Hamlets.

Such negligence demands answers, and even a brow-beaten citizenry must ask questions of its overlords from time to time. The question now must surely be: what exactly is the purpose of the police, if it’s not policing? And more to the point – who ordered this non-engagement with terrorists? The Home Office has been clear that such gatherings must face the full force of the law (and for what it’s worth, I don’t doubt Suella Braverman’s sincerity on this). So, unless we are to accuse the government of a double-shuffle, the fault lies elsewhere. Is it Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has accused the force of being “institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic”, and threatened to break it up if it doesn’t get its act together? Or, is it MET Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley himself?

Rowley would certainly appear to be a contender. It was he, after all, who weaselled his way out of policing Just Stop Oil on the pretext that the law was not robust enough; and when granted new powers by the Home Office, still refused to use them. In response to criticism of the weekend’s laissez-faire policing, and in light of his summons to Braverman’s desk for a wigging, the MET Commissioner has doubled-down, absurdly claiming the protests did not meet the threshold for arrest:

Rowley is clearly out of his depth, and more likely to strike fear into his tailor than a terrorist. When he uttered those immortal words however, he should have been sacked unceremoniously on the spot:

We are absolutely ruthless in tackling anybody who puts their foot over the legal line. We’re accountable to law; we can’t enforce taste or decency, but we can enforce the law.

This is more than mere cowardice, more than deceit – this is connivance. Such behaviour is unbecoming of the police. At what point did a once proud institution morph into the militant activist wing of The Guardian newspaper; content to follow the line of least resistance and the cheap beer? Is it any wonder that public confidence is “hanging by a thread”?

Alas, reneging on their duties is nothing new for the British constabulary – they have form in this department going back decades. The police have perennially turned a blind eye to Muslim rape gangs, ‘honour’ killings, and to double-standards over Islam generally. Now, the MET are clearly gaslighting the public into believing anything except their lying eyes. Heads should roll for this, and the Home Office should not require the services of ISIS to do so (although, judging by the support for Hamas on display, a discounted per capita rate could probably be arranged).

As any cursory glimpse of social media will tell you – in Britain, and across the West generally, the enemy within is now sufficiently emboldened that civil war is only a hair trigger away. A nation will only subsidise its own destruction for a finite period before rebelling the experiment, after all. Over the next days and weeks, we can expect to hear more tough talk on extremism such as Robert Jenrick’s insistence that “supporters of terror groups will be expelled” – yeah right, Minister. Perhaps we should start with Sir Mark Rowley and work our way down?

Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.

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