The police force in England is accused of having contacted transport companies and asking them to cancel trips to London this weekend in order to prevent people from attending the massive pro-Palestine rally planned for Saturday.

According to some accounts and posts on X, the coach company, Sleafordian Coaches – based in the eastern county of Lincolnshire – has been cancelling trips to London over the past few days which were scheduled for Saturday, 11 November, when protesters planned to head to the capital to participate in the pro-Palestine rally to be held there that day.

The X users, some of whom were from the Lincoln Friends of Palestine group, alleged that the cancellations were due to the county’s police force, the Lincolnshire Police, asking or pressuring the company to prevent travel to London for that period. According to activists on X, that would make both complicit in Israel’s current and ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Middle East Monitor reached out to Sleafordian Coaches to ascertain the veracity of those allegations, but received no answer by the time of this writing. Lincolnshire Police, meanwhile, denied its involvement, telling MEMO that “we haven’t contacted the travel company regarding transport arrangements. These reports are inaccurate.”

Some have speculated that such a request by a police force would be covert and unwritten, though with the advocacy organisation, CAGE, stating on X that “This is the Prevent Policing infrastructure built over the last 2 decades. Where no laws are broken, cops will use underhand tactics to pressurise venues and others. They rarely put anything in writing because they are knowingly breaking the law.”

Amid significant outrage over the planned protest on Saturday, as it coincides with Armistice Day throughout the nation, London’s own Metropolitan Police force has been under pressure to cancel and ban the pro-Palestine march itself, especially by the British government which has slammed it as “unacceptable”.

The capital’s police force has asked protestors and organisers not to go ahead with the march, with Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Ade Adelekan, warning that the “risk of violence and disorder linked to breakaway groups is growing. This is of concern ahead of a significant and busy weekend in the capital”. He further added that “Our message to organisers is clear: Please, we ask you to urgently reconsider. It is not appropriate to hold any protests in London this weekend”.

Despite that warning and request, the Metropolitan Police has refrained from banning the protest, as Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, stated that the use of the power to ban protests “is incredibly rare and must be based on intelligence which suggests there will be a real threat of serious disorder and no other way for police to manage the event.”

The pro-Palestine protest this Saturday, however, poses no such threat, Rowley acknowledged, saying that “the intelligence surrounding the potential for serious disorder this weekend does not meet the threshold to apply for a ban.”

Source: Middle East Monitor