Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley gives a statement outside Charing Cross police station, London, after a High Court challenge over the Met Police’s use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology was dismissed, April 21, 2026
ANTI-WAR groups have launched a letter campaign for the resignation of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley after “openly lying” about Palestine protesters.
Signed by more than 1,300, the letter to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, and Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime chief executive Rena Laigie, warned that “Rowley must go.”
Sir Mark claimed that the pro-Palestine march on May 16, which coincided with a far-right demonstration, posed a threat to the public and that it deliberately marched past synagogues.
Stop the War Coalition and other organisers quickly debunked the statements and demanded corrections.
“On 16 May, Mark Rowley allowed a far-right hate march led by known fascist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon to go to Parliament while barring the Palestine movement from the political centre of London,” the letter reads.
“The Metropolitan Police has failed to act on incidents of Islamophobia and incitement to violence on the far-right demo, while downplaying the size of the Palestine mobilisation.
“Commissioner Rowley’s role as a politically neutral head of the Metropolitan Police has become untenable. We call on Rowley to resign his post immediately.”
London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley. Image by Katie Chan, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license via wikimedia.
The Morning Star is calling on London Mayor Sadiq Khan to sack Met Police boss Mark Rowley
MARK ROWLEY is fast becoming a menace to democracy in Britain. The country’s most powerful police officer is daily transgressing the limits — on partisanship, on political interference, on responsibility to all citizens — which have traditionally bounded the public interventions of leading state officials.
Of course, those limits have often been honoured in the breach. But the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has discarded all appearances of impartiality and, indeed, truthfulness.
It has long been clear that he has a special animus for the Palestine solidarity movement. He has sought to restrict its demonstrations on the most specious grounds and arrest its organisers for entirely peaceful and responsible conduct.
After the most notorious of such crackdowns, on the demonstration in January 2025, Rowley hastened to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which had been pushing for protest curbs, to receive an ovation from them the very next day.
By contrast, he has consistently refused to meet the organisers of the protests. He has been zealous in arresting peaceful objectors to the Palestine Action proscription.
Now he is deploying direct falsehoods in his attempt to rationalise a still more severe crackdown. He has accused the organisers of the huge demonstrations against Israel’s genocide of repeatedly seeking to march past synagogues.
That is a lie, as Rowley knows. The campaign has never sought to march past synagogues nor protest outside them in any way. Had they done so, it would indeed have been a matter of concern.
The Palestine Coalition has written to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner calling on him to retract his claims that they “set out with an intent to march near synagogues”. The letter describes these claims as “incomprehensible and defamatory” and urges a “speedy … retraction.”
We are very concerned to see that you have publicly stated that the organisers’ initial suggestion for the Palestine marches have ‘involved walking by a synagogue’ and that this sends a message that ‘feels like antisemitism’. These claims are incomprehensible and defamatory.
Our first route suggestion for the next demonstration to commemorate the Nakba, made in writing on 18 December last year, was for a march from Embankment to Whitehall, via Westminster and Waterloo bridges, a route which we have used at least twice before and on which there are no synagogues.
After three months of silence we finally were told by your officers that this route was disallowed on the grounds that Tommy Robinson’s far right demonstration – a real hate march – was inexplicably going to be granted the whole political centre of London, and that we would have to march elsewhere.
Our second suggestion, made after much protest, was that we march from the Israeli Embassy via Knightsbridge to Trafalgar Square – again, a route that does not go past a synagogue, and one previously agreed by the police.This too has been disallowed, and a shorter route has been arbitrarily imposed.
The truth is that at no point have we ever requested to ‘walk by’ a synagogue on any of our marches. We have no interest in doing so. Police recordings of our meetings with you will confirm this.
We can and will provide the email evidence to back up these facts. It is completely unacceptable for a senior public official to make these false claims and accusations, which can only raise the level of tension in the current situation.
We urge a speedy public retraction of your statement and the accompanying scurrilous claim of antisemitism.
Yours sincerely
The Palestine Coalition
Palestine Solidarity Campaign Palestinian Forum of Britain Stop the War Coalition Friends of Al-Aqsa Muslim Association of Britain Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament04 May 2026
THE police should not be above scrutiny, Zack Polanski has said, amid a political furore over a post he shared about officers’ behaviour during the Golders Green stabbings.
The Green Party leader also hit out at Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley – who wrote an open letter criticising the politician over the repost – saying the commissioner’s move was not “an appropriate way to do politics.”
Mr Polanski retweeted an X post which accused officers of kicking the suspect in the north-west London attack in the head after he had already been incapacitated.
He has faced criticism, including from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who branded him “disgraceful” and “not fit to lead any political party.”
Mr Polanski told Sky News: “I think you can both recognise the bravery of officers who run towards incidents that most of us, including myself, would certainly want to run away from – and find the appropriate forum to say that no-one, especially the police, should be above scrutiny.
“The reason why I’ve apologised is I accept that wasn’t the appropriate forum.”
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Pro-Palestinian activists stage a solidarity protest outside Royal Courts of Justice as co-founder of Palestine Action Huda Ammori takes Home Secretary to High Court over proscription of the group as terror organization in London, United Kingdom on July 4, 2025. Ammori is seeking to block the proscription coming into effect. [İlyas Tayfun Salcı – Anadolu Agency]
Amnesty International UK has urged the Metropolitan Police against mass arresting peaceful demonstrators expressing support for the recently banned group, Palestine Action, ahead of a major protest planned in London on Saturday, Anadolu reports.
The protest organized by the activist group, Defend Our Juries, is expected to draw hundreds.
Since the group’s ban on July 5 under the Terrorism Act, more than 200 people across the UK have been arrested for displaying slogans such as “I Oppose Genocide. I Support Palestine Action.”
Police have indicated they may arrest hundreds more this weekend, and prison authorities have been asked to prepare for a potential influx of detainees, after the justice ministry initiated a “capacity gold demand,” according to reports.
Amnesty UK Chief Executive Sacha Deshmukh urged officers to exercise restraint and uphold international human rights law, in a letter to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley.
“Peaceful protesters must be free to express themselves this weekend without fear of reprisals, said Deshmukh. Arresting people on terrorism offences for peacefully holding a placard flies in the face of international human rights law.”
“At a time when people are quite rightly outraged by the genocide they see being perpetrated in Gaza, it is more crucial than ever that there is space to peacefully express that outrage,” he also said.
The letter argues that criminalizing protest slogans supportive of Palestine Action breaches the UK’s international obligations to protect freedom of expression and assembly.
It adds that under international law, protest speech can only be criminalized if it incites violence, serious property damage, hatred or discrimination — criteria which, Amnesty notes, are not met by holding a placard.
The letter also references the High Court’s recent decision to grant a full hearing to a judicial review challenge against the proscription.
The Court ruled that the case raised “serious issues to be tried,” meaning the legal foundation for arrests under sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act is now in doubt.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also publicly criticized the UK’s decision to ban Palestine Action.
And the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights has been granted permission to intervene in the judicial review.
Defend Our Juries, which focuses on civil disobedience and protest trials, has led peaceful demonstrations in Westminster since the Palestine Action ban took effect. The protest on Saturday is expected to include up to 500 demonstrators who are expected to hold placards in open defiance of the ban.
Amnesty International has urged police to focus on facilitating peaceful protest rather than suppressing it.
“I call again on the Met police to think carefully before making rash decisions this weekend – their job is to facilitate peaceful protest, not shut it down,” said Deshmukh.
In June, the government announced a ban under the Terrorism Act 2000 after activists from Palestine Action spray-painted planes at a Royal Air Force base, an act being investigated under counter-terrorism laws.
The ban was later passed in the House of Commons and the House of Lords in July.
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Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley gives a statement outside Charing Cross police station, London, after a High Court challenge over the Met Police’s use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology was dismissed, April 21, 2026
