UK minister faces quit calls in police march row
UK interior minister Suella Braverman's job was hanging in the balance on Thursday after she criticised policing of pro-Palestinian marches in comments made without Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's approval. Sunak is facing mounting calls to sack Braverman after she suggested officers "play favourites" when policing protests and claimed they largely ignored "pro-Palestinian mobs" during recent demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war. The comments come after she described the rallies calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as "hate marches", days after claiming some people were homeless as a "lifestyle choice". Downing Street insisted it had full confidence in Braverman but said it was investigating how her comments in an opinion piece in The Times were published without its consent, as required by the ministerial code. "The content was not agreed with Number 10," a spokesman for Sunak told reporters, referring to the Prime Minister's Downing Street office. According to people familiar with the matter, the article was sent to Sunak's office, which requested changes that were not made. Sunak has described a planned pro-Palestinian march in London on Saturday – Armistice Day, when Britain honours its war dead – as "provocative and disrespectful" and suggested London's Metropolitan Police ban it. Police have said the march does not meet the legal threshold for requesting a government order to stop it. Tensions between London's Met Police and Sunak appeared to ease on Wednesday after an emergency meeting at which the force's chief, Mark Rowley, confirmed the march would not clash with remembrance events for the country's war dead. But Braverman's article was scathing about the Met's policing. "Right-wing and nationalist protesters who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behaviour are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law," she wrote. (AFP)