Britain’s top police officer calls for ‘outrageous gaps’ in hate crime law which allows people to ‘lawfully stir up racial and religious hatred’ to be closed
The country’s top police officer has called for ‘scandalous’ gaps in hate crime The law, which he says allows people to lawfully incite racial and religious hatred, is closed.
Sir Mark Rowleywho leads the metropolitan policesaid it was ‘surprising’ that people could stir up hatred when they were ‘not threatening or insulting’.
The Met has faced controversy over its surveillance of hate crimes and protests in the United States London around the conflict between Israel and Hamas, with calls for Sir Mark to resign.
The force has come under pressure from seniors Conservativesincluding former Minister of the Interior Suella Bravermanand campaign groups to ban large pro-Palestinian demonstrations – something the police chief said was not possible because the legal threshold for a ban had not been met.
Sir Mark Rowley (pictured), chief of the Metropolitan Police, said it was ‘startling’ that people could stir up hatred if they ‘avoided being threatening or offensive’.
The force has come under pressure from leading Conservatives, including former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, and campaign groups to ban large pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The Met has faced controversy over its oversight of hate crime and protests in London surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict, with calls for Sir Mark to resign
Sir Mark, discussing the challenges of policing the protests in the latest episode of the podcast A Muslim and a Jew Go There, was asked by co-host Baroness Sayeeda Warsi how police would respond if ‘a Jew used the Y word ‘. , or if I use the P-word, or a black person uses the N-word, or if an Asian person uses the C-word, coconut.”
The police chief said he was “quite affected by some of these kinds of gaps in hate crime legislation” when he was working on an extremism report before rejoining the Met as commissioner.
He said: ‘There are some things that are quite startling.
“It is perfectly legal at this point to deliberately incite racial and religious hatred, as long as you avoid being threatening or insulting.”
Co-host, comedian and screenwriter David Baddiel said: ‘But that seems impossible?’
To which Sir Mark replied: ‘It’s outrageous, isn’t it.’
The police chief said he was “quite affected by some of these kinds of gaps in hate crime legislation.” (Sir Mark Rowley speaking at the Policy Exchange in 2023)
The Met Police website currently defines a hate crime as: ‘Any criminal offense which the victim or any other person perceives to be motivated by hostility or prejudice on the basis of a person’s race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.”
Sir Mark has previously said he would support a review of the legal definition of extremism and how it should be policed, following criticism of the force’s handling of recent pro-Palestinian protests in London.
Explaining the law surrounding demonstrations, the commissioner told the podcast: ‘So basically it’s a gathering, there’s no power whatsoever to ban a protest gathering.
‘A march, so a moving meeting, there is in extremis a power to prohibit, but we are nowhere near that threshold.
He continued, “If you listen to the public rhetoric, you would think we have the power to make this go away, even if that were a good idea, which it isn’t.”
