Sir Mark Rowley must go

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, and James Cleverly, Home Secretary

The time has come for Sir Mark Rowley to go.

Sir Mark Rowley must resign or be removed by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the Home Secretary, James Cleverly.

What happened to Gideon Falter was a disgrace. Imagine what it felt like to be told by police officers that being “quite openly Jewish” would “antagonise” people and so he must leave the area on pain of arrest.

However it is what happened next that is such a stain on the reputation of the Metropolitan Police Service. Nearly a week after the incident, Sir Mark’s Assistant Commissioner issued a statement calling Gideon’s presence “provocative” and saying that by making public what had happened, he had put a “dent in the confidence of many Jewish Londoners”.

The ensuring outrage forced the Met to apologise yet again. This time, it was for their appalling, abject victim blaming, which had come from the top and showed that after six months, Sir Mark’s Met still does not get it and is not about to improve unless there is a change of leadership.

What happened to Gideon was the inevitable conclusion of six months of inertia and contextualising crimes away by a Met that has curtailed the rights of law-abiding Londoners in order to appear mobs rife with anti-Jewish racists and terrorist sympathisers.

Sir Mark has the distinction of presiding over the worst surge in antisemitic criminality in our capital city since records began. We are in a time when 90% of British Jews say that they would avoid the centre of town when an anti-Israel protest is taking place. Those protests have made our city centres into no-go zones for Jews every weekend for six months now, and in Gideon’s case, that no-go zone was enforced by the Met.

Sir Mark has toured news studios lamenting the lack of police powers, and yet Gideon has witnessed firsthand how Sir Mark’s officers invented powers to wrongfully tell him that he would be arrested for daring to be Jewish in public. Sir Mark has lamented a lack of funding to reform the Met while saddling the taxpayer with bills for many tens of millions to allow these marches to continue unchecked week after week.

Sir Mark’s failure to curtail the marches by using his powers under the Public Order Act 1986 has made it impossible to bring them under control and police them properly. As a direct result of that failure, countless antisemitic hate crimes and terrorism offences have been perpetrated in broad daylight on our streets during marches, and those responsible have walked free as his vastly outnumbered officers are powerless to intervene and some frontline officers have even been hospitalised.

Racists, extremists and terrorist-sympathisers have watched the excuses and inertia of the Met under his command and been emboldened by his inaction at precisely the moment when he should be signalling a renewed determination to crack down on this criminality.

What the Met under Sir Mark has done to the Jewish community over the course of six months is utterly unforgivable and it is time for him to go. Enough is enough.

To: Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, and James Cleverly, Home Secretary
From: [Your Name]

The time has come for Sir Mark Rowley to go.

Sir Mark Rowley must resign or be removed by you as the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary.

What happened to Gideon Falter was a disgrace. Imagine what it felt like to be told by police officers that being “quite openly Jewish” would “antagonise” people and so he must leave the area on pain of arrest.

However it is what happened next that is such a stain on the reputation of the Metropolitan Police Service. Nearly a week after the incident, Sir Mark’s Assistant Commissioner issued a statement calling Gideon’s presence “provocative” and saying that by making public what had happened, he had put a “dent in the confidence of many Jewish Londoners”.

The ensuring outrage forced the Met to apologise yet again. This time, it was for their appalling, abject victim blaming, which had come from the top and showed that after six months, Sir Mark’s Met still does not get it and is not about to improve unless there is a change of leadership.

What happened to Gideon was the inevitable conclusion of six months of inertia and contextualising crimes away by a Met that has curtailed the rights of law-abiding Londoners in order to appear mobs rife with anti-Jewish racists and terrorist sympathisers.

Sir Mark has the distinction of presiding over the worst surge in antisemitic criminality in our capital city since records began. We are in a time when 90% of British Jews say that they would avoid the centre of town when an anti-Israel protest is taking place. Those protests have made our city centres into no-go zones for Jews every weekend for six months now, and in Gideon’s case, that no-go zone was enforced by the Met.

Sir Mark has toured news studios lamenting the lack of police powers, and yet Gideon has witnessed firsthand how Sir Mark’s officers invented powers to wrongfully tell him that he would be arrested for daring to be Jewish in public. Sir Mark has lamented a lack of funding to reform the Met while saddling the taxpayer with bills for many tens of millions to allow these marches to continue unchecked week after week.

Sir Mark’s failure to curtail the marches by using his powers under the Public Order Act 1986 has made it impossible to bring them under control and police them properly. As a direct result of that failure, countless antisemitic hate crimes and terrorism offences have been perpetrated in broad daylight on our streets during marches, and those responsible have walked free as his vastly outnumbered officers are powerless to intervene and some frontline officers have even been hospitalised.

Racists, extremists and terrorist-sympathisers have watched the excuses and inertia of the Met under his command and been emboldened by his inaction at precisely the moment when he should be signalling a renewed determination to crack down on this criminality.

What the Met under Sir Mark has done to the Jewish community over the course of six months is utterly unforgivable and it is time for him to go. Enough is enough.