Met urges students to move pro-Palestine march planned for 7 October anniversary

The Metropolitan Police has urged a student group calling itself the University of London Coalition to move a pro-Palestine march planned for Wednesday, the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks on Israel.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman made the appeal at a New Scotland Yard media briefing on Friday. He said around 300 students were expected to march at midday on Wednesday from King’s College London in the Strand to University College London in Holborn, demanding an end to what they describe as “a genocide in Gaza”.

Harman said the force had tried but failed to identify the organisers, and that the march did not meet the strict legal threshold for asking the Home Secretary to ban it. “Serious concerns have been expressed about the impact of this march on students and staff, particularly those who are Jewish, the route, and the day it is being held,” he said, urging anyone intending to join to “reflect on the impact and distress it will cause on this very significant day, and exercise your right to protest on a different date”.

The Met has also written to four London universities — King’s College London, the London School of Economics, SOAS and University College London — asking them to take “all reasonable steps” so students do not feel “excluded, targeted or unsafe”, citing Community Security Trust findings that antisemitic incidents at UK universities are substantially higher than pre-October 2023 levels.

If the march goes ahead, the Met said it would use its “full powers” to impose conditions on route and timing, with a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime. Harman noted the force has made more than 17,000 hate-crime arrests since October 2023.

The march falls in an exceptionally busy week for policing: a Palestine Coalition national march on Saturday 10 October expected to draw up to 10,000, the Battle of Cable Street 90th-anniversary march in Whitechapel on Sunday, and the Holborn and St Pancras by-election on Thursday 8 October. More than 600 officers will be deployed; policing protests since October 2023 has cost the Met £26.6 million, rising to £90 million with opportunity costs.