On a Friday afternoon in mid-February 2024, Ben Jamal got an unexpected call from the police. Could he push tomorrow’s march back by two hours? His stomach sank. The director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign was not unused to having police place conditions on the protests that had taken place in the capital almost fortnightly since 7 October 2023 – in fact, they had done so every time – but this, he told Novara Media, was “an impossible sort of injunction”.

Coaches busing down thousands of people from around the country had been booked, and it was too close to the march to expect people to check the PSC’s social media for last-minute changes of plan. “Anybody turning up at the advertised time was liable to risk of arrest,” Jamal said. Still, he found a compromise – the march would start half an hour later. Crisis averted.

Europe’s largest Palestinian rights organisation, with over 8,000 members, 70 local branches and 15 trade union affiliates, the PSC represents the mainstream faction of the Palestine movement in the UK, running boycott campaigns and campaigning for legal changes. Throughout its 40-year history, the PSC has eschewed the more disruptive tactics of the militant wing of the Palestine movement now synonymous with Palestine Action.

Since October, the PSC has taken up a place as the biggest group in the coalition organising the regular national Palestine demonstrations in London, some of which have numbered up to a quarter of a million. The task has required managing an unwieldy coalition of the labour movement, Muslim and Jewish community groups and tens of thousands of members of the general public who descend on the capital from around the country.

Unlike many leftwing groups, the PSC works closely with the police to ensure its protests go ahead without incident – organising such massive protests, which often require road closures, would be difficult without police involvement.

But now, PSC finds itself in open conflict with the Metropolitan police, after it effectively banned an upcoming march on spurious antisemitism grounds. As a result, the tense but cordial relationship that had existed between the police and PSC has gone sour – making a confrontation with the police seem increasingly inevitable.

Speaking to Novara Media, Jamal said that the PSC will continue its planned march from Whitehall to the BBC on Saturday – even if the police disperse the crowd en route. However, Jamal said the police have reportedly hinted at imposing additional conditions – such as banning a march starting in Whitehall – which would place a further spanner in the works. The PSC wants to avoid any chaotic scenes that could be used as an excuse by the government – whose policing minister, Diana Johnson, is former vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel – to ban the marches altogether.

Backtracking.

On Thursday, the police reneged on their agreement with the PSC that the march planned for 18 January could start at BBC Broadcasting House and continue down to Whitehall. Using powers given to them by the Public Order Act, the Met placed an exclusion zone around the BBC, saying that the march risked seriously disrupting nearby synagogues.

Again the PSC offered a compromise, flipping its original route to start in Whitehall and end at Broadcasting House. Meanwhile, over 800 British Jews signed a statement saying that the Met’s effective ban was a cynical attempt to conjure “an imaginary threat” to Jews to “interfere with hard-won political freedoms”. Over a dozen trade union leaders and several high-profile cultural figures echoed their sentiments. The police doubled down.

On Monday evening, the Met released a further statement saying that “a demonstration ending and dispersing from [Broadcasting House] would have the same impact” as one beginning there. They added they would meet with the PSC and other organisers to discuss the matter on Tuesday – though privately told the PSC they would only consider a discussion to change either the route or day of the week.

In a private letter to Jamal seen by Novar Media, commander Adam Slonecki added further reasons why the new route wouldn’t work: “Reversing the route brings into consideration other factors, not least the dispersal routes, the necessity to suspend a large area of parking that is used by local residents, hospital patients and staff, as well as visitors to London,” he wrote. Jamal pointed out that parking considerations would be relevant whenever the march was held – not just on a Saturday, which the police insisted was particularly problematic.

The PSC met with the police on Tuesday, probing the force on its justifications for placing an exclusion zone around the BBC. The police had said even the new route would interfere with the Shabbat (sabbath) service of the nearby Central Synagogue, located a few hundred metres from Broadcasting House. However, the very latest the synagogue service could end is 1pm, two hours before the demonstration is expected to arrive at Portland Place.

According to Jamal, the police responded that they had received representations from several Jewish leaders insisting that there would be disruption to worship. But which leaders? One of the complainants, the rabbi of Central Synagogue, Barry Lerer, has been vocal in his disapproval of the marches, telling the Jewish Chronicle that “the Gaza protests had been damaging his shul’s ability to function”. Yet Lerer is also deeply opposed to the marches in principle – and is a hardline supporter of the Israeli government.

In a sermon delivered in September, Lerer told his flock: “Israel is standing up against the world and governments and media who chose not to see or not to comment on any of those events over the past year – their eyes were too focussed on Rafah … now that Israel is finally responding they have all of a sudden woken up – condemning Israel of course and calling for a ceasefire.” Lerer argued against such pacifism: “It is time to go to combat our enemies, not only on the battlefield but the hostile press, those on social media, the UN and governments, who have no desire for the truth or peace and seek the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.”

In another sermon, which was removed from the synagogue’s website on Tuesday following questions from Novara Media, Lerer approvingly quoted former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir saying: “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

In a statement shared on Tuesday with Novara Media, the Jewish bloc – a group of organisations embedded within the Palestine movement, including Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Black-Jewish Alliance and Jewish Voice for Labour – said the police should not be taking direction from individuals such as Lerer. “The Metropolitan Police are indulging pro-Israel advocacy masquerading as communal concern. Supporters of Israeli atrocities do not accept any form of Pro-Palestine activism and will not stop until the movement is fully suppressed.”

In the meeting with police, the PSC questioned Lerer’s intentions in complaining about the marches. Jamal says the police dismissed these concerns – it was not their role, they said, to make political assessments. “I think that’s exactly what [they’re] doing,” Jamal told Novara Media. “This is a political decision,” he added, saying he felt it was in large part the result of “pressure … being applied by Keir Starmer’s government”.

The Jewish bloc reiterated this in its statement: “The Metropolitan Police’s decision to block the new route of the national demonstration for Palestine reveals the real reason for their crackdown: to suppress the right to protest genocide.

“Their stated justification for preventing the march from beginning at the BBC headquarters was the spurious claim it would disrupt a synagogue service on a road away from the route. No evidence has been provided for this, no such incidents have been identified during the two previous marches which used this route. That thousands of Jews join us on these marches illustrates their welcoming, diverse, anti-racist character. Many of us join the demonstrations after attending morning synagogue services.

“We, as Jews, reject the ludicrous notion that opposing genocide is disruptive to Jewish life. We reject these attempts to shield Israel and the BBC from protest. We call on the Metropolitan Police to desist from these fraudulent excuses and permit the national demonstration for Palestine to begin or finish at the BBC.”

The Metropolitan Police declined to comment further than their published statements. The Central Synagogue has been approached for comment.