Britain’s laws allow protesters to promote racial hatred without fear of police repercussions, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, told The Telegraph in an interview on December 12.
Rowley stated that he still stands by a 2021 report he co-published, claiming the problems highlighted remain, according to The Telegraph.
The report, a legal review examining whether or not the current legislation was enough to combat hateful extremism, included Rowley writing that he was horrified by “the gaping chasm in the law that allows hateful extremists to operate with impunity.”
In the report, Rowley pointed out that in the UK it is legal to “intentionally stir up racial hatred, so long as one avoids being threatening, abusive or insulting.” Under these terms, the report continued, it is entirely legal to form a Neo-Nazi extremist group consistently praising Adolf Hitler and spreading Holocaust denial and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Also listed as legal in the report is glorifying terrorism, “so long as one avoids encouraging the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism or related offences.” Therefore, so long as one is not encouraging or inducing the public to commit, prepare, or instigate acts of terrorism, individuals are free to praise the actions and ideology of terrorists and terror organizations.
Rowley told The Telegraph that he is still concerned that “it is legal for you to intentionally stir up race hatred in the UK as long as you’re not threatening.”
UK must investigate if pro-Palestinian protest chants are prosecutable
Discussing the protests that use phrases such as ‘From the river to the sea’ and ‘globalize the intifada’, Rowley said police needed to question whether the law currently treats the slogans as prosecutable.
“In some cases, they have been, but in many cases, they aren’t. We’ll keep pushing that because I want to be as assertive in using the law that Parliament’s created as is possible,” he said.
Rowley also expressed the need for larger legislative changes.
“We can keep debating about what we should do about these phrases, but unless we address the fact that we lack legislation which would provide a foundational basis to help us take the necessary yet proportionate action, we will keep having these same debates,” he told The Telegraph.