Pro-Palestinian protesters clash with police in London — as it happened

Times

23-06-2025

Police are instructing protesters to leave the road, with the majority moving and traffic beginning to flow through from Charing Cross Road to Trafalgar Square.
Some individuals were detained by police, appearing to resist their instructions.
A small crowd and police vans remain on Duncannon Street.
A protester with a megaphone has thanked everyone for coming.
At 3pm, the Met Police conditions, which restricted the demonstration to a three-hour slot from midday, ran out.
Those leading the chants encouraged protesters to leave together, cover their faces and to not answer to the police.
Protesters are trying to gradually push back the line of police on Duncannon Street.
A crowd has also gathered on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields church.
One protester remained cross legged in the road. Protesters have tried to board the 29 bus which police were attempting to let through.
Bus drivers, who started working at 5.30am and were still stuck on Charing Cross Road at 2pm, criticised the location of the protest, saying its impact on ordinary people did not lend sympathy to their cause.
In one instance, a protester stopped the path of a black cab trying to do a U-turn in order to collect his children.
The crowd has restarted chants of 'shame on you' as police carried away two more protesters near Trafalgar Square.
They swarmed around officers carrying the protesters, with one officer shouting: 'Stop resisting!'
Protesters have formed a circle around individuals detained by the police and are chanting 'let them go' and 'police go home'.
A Just Stop Oil supporter who had been imprisoned on remand for the climate activist group but refused to be named, said he had seen about 15 others from the group at the protest.
'If they're coming for Palestine Action, who are they going to come for next? That's why I'm showing up, I support other movements as well,' he said.
'Last year Just Stop Oil were doing airport actions and some of them got remand and stuff but they didn't proscribe Just Stop Oil.
'We've been curtailed … how come we're not allowed down at Parliament Square?'
The home secretary's move will make it illegal to be a member or invite support of Palestine Action with a punishment of up to 14 years in jail.
It will require a vote in both Houses of Parliament, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday next week and if passed, the group will be proscribed by the end of next week.
Cooper listed a series of attacks committed by Palestine Action since its inception in 2022 which have led to her decision to proscribe the group. She also pointed to its media output that promotes its attacks involving 'serious property damage, as well as celebrating the perpetrators' as evidence that has led to the decision.
The home secretary said: 'In several attacks, Palestine Action has committed acts of serious damage to property with the aim of progressing its political cause and influencing the government.'
Palestine Action will be proscribed as a terror group by the end of next week subject to a vote in both Houses of Parliament, the home secretary has announced.
Yvette Cooper said she had decided to ban Palestine Action after a 'long history of unacceptable criminal damage' committed by members of the group.
She said its 'disgraceful attack' on RAF Brize Norton on Friday was the latest example of its threat to Britain's national security and said the government will 'not tolerate those that put that security at risk'.
Cooper will publish secondary legislation next Monday to add Palestine Action to the list of proscribed terrorist organisations alongside the likes of Al-Qaeda, Isis and Hamas.
Miriam Scharf, 75, a pensioner of Jewish heritage from Newham, east London, said: 'It is extremely important to me that it is not done in the name of Jewish people.
'It is extremely important that those who stand up for what is just and for humanity, are allowed to protest about it.
'I think from the beginning under the previous government, they've always wanted to shut us up. The Labour government had gone along with it. They don't like any protests against their policies because our government is … complicit in a genocide, complicit in what's happening.'
Diana Neslen, 85, a 'regular' at marches in support of Palestine, attended the protest on two crutches but left after altercations between protesters and the police.
'I'm here today to support democracy, to support free speech and to support our right to peaceful action,' she said when protesters were gathered before Nelson's Column.
'Look at this, we should have the right to stand in front of parliament and show our faith until the MPs see why we think what they're doing is wrong.
'Instead we're herded into little tiny spaces so that hardly anyone can see us, and certainly not the politicians.'
Palestine Action has lashed out at the Metropolitan Police's 'draconian response' to the protest at Trafalgar Square, in which several protestors were dragged off by police.
'They want to ban us, they banned our protest at parliament and now they attack us,' the group said on X.
'The people will not be intimated. We are all Palestine Action.'
The protesters now spread across the junction of Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross Road and Duncannon Street.
Pushing in the crowd has now stopped although there remains a heavy police presence.
Pedestrians are able to pass although traffic is blocked. In one corner, protesters who brought young children have put down picnic blankets.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, earlier said he was 'shocked and frustrated' at the planned demonstration, as the group is soon expected to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
The Met has placed restrictions on the protest, including an exclusion zone around parliament, and stipulating that it must end by 3pm.
Organisers had changed the location of the protest to Trafalgar Square after police enforced an exclusion zone around parliament.
The protest has now spread into the road, blocking traffic. One protester handed out cards with instructions on what to do if arrested.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said she has decided to proscribe Palestine Action and will lay an order before parliament next week which, if passed, will make membership and support for the protest group illegal.
Disorder has broken out at a protest in support of Palestine Action in London, as the group is expected to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Police appeared to lead away some protesters, while the crowd chanted 'shame on you' and 'let them go' and tried to pull activists away from officers.