As I looked out my window this morning at the fleet of Metropolitan Police armoured vehicles idling comfortably outside a Pret A Manger, I was struck by a profound sense of civic melancholy. Central London has once again been hijacked by the ideological extremes. On one side, we have Stephen Yaxley Lennon—who performs under the stage name Tommy Robinson—leading his 'Unite the Kingdom' rally in a spirited defense of throwing bricks at immigrant-owned businesses. On the other side, tens of thousands have gathered for the annual Nakba day march, radicalized by the fringe, uncompromising belief that bombing refugee camps is somewhat distasteful.
To the untrained observer, these might seem like vastly different propositions. But to those of us who appreciate the delicate balance of a Saturday afternoon in the capital, they are two sides of the exact same deeply inconvenient coin. Both factions have utterly failed to consider the immense emotional toll their walking is taking on the 4,000 heavily armed riot police dispatched to manage them.
I spoke with several officers this morning while they were busy strapping titanium armor onto a Belgian Malinois. The exhaustion in their eyes was palpable. It is no small feat to spend your weekend deploying military-grade surveillance drones over a crowd of grandmothers chanting for a ceasefire, only to have to pivot an hour later to politely kettle a mob of men with neck tattoos chanting about the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race. To demand our brave men and women in uniform treat these two identical threats with the same iron fist is simply asking too much of the public purse.
The sheer psychological burden of pretending these two crowds require identical levels of state violence is pushing our forces to the breaking point.
Consider the logistics. The Met has been forced to deploy horses, helicopters, and dog units—resources that could have been peacefully utilized to intimidate teenagers in Croydon—all because people insist on holding convictions out in the open. Do you have any idea how much aviation fuel a police helicopter burns while hovering menacingly over a trade unionist holding a cardboard placard? We are in a cost-of-living crisis, yet these so-called activists have no qualms about forcing the state to spend millions surveilling them just because they feel strongly about international law or ethnic cleansing.
It is time we had a grown-up conversation about the right to assemble. Specifically, the fact that your right to assemble is violently impinging on my right to not see a phalanx of riot shields while I am trying to purchase a sourdough loaf in Soho. The true heroes of this weekend are not the people standing up to fascism, nor are they the fascists standing up to multiculturalism. The true heroes are the 4,000 exhausted officers who must bravely pretend they perceive an equal threat from both.
I humbly suggest that the next time you feel the urge to take to the streets, whether to demand basic human rights or to demand the immediate deportation of your neighbors, you stay home. Give the horses a rest. Let the drones sleep. And let those of us in the sensible center enjoy our weekend in the blissful, heavily-policed silence we deserve.