Call off the protests on Armistice Day

Armistice Day is meant to be a rare moment of national unity. On November 11 each year, at 11am precisely, we observe two minutes’ silence in order to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and its freedoms.

There are, meanwhile, few more dignified or moving events in the national calendar than the Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. It sees the Royal family, political leaders, representatives of the Commonwealth, and others lay wreaths in honour of the fallen.

So there has inevitably been outrage that anti-Israel protesters intend to hold a mass rally in central London next Saturday, with fears that some wish to disrupt the two minutes’ silence.

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, yesterday condemned the plans as “provocative and disrespectful”, and “an affront to the British public”. A previous march saw a stage set up next to the Cenotaph, and the monument was draped in Palestinian flags. Mr Sunak said that there is “a clear and present risk that the Cenotaph and other war memorials could be desecrated”.

If that is the case, then what is being done to prevent it? As with the previous weeks of protests on the streets of London and other major cities, politicians have been happy to denounce appalling and hateful behaviour – including the chanting of anti-Semitic slogans – but have intimated that there is nothing they can do about it.

The problem is not the law, they say, but the decisions made by the police. The police signal that it is the other way round: it is not their fault, but the consequence of deficiencies in the legislation.

Nobody, in other words, is taking responsibility, which would be bad enough on any ordinary weekend, but is utterly unacceptable on a weekend on which the vast majority want to pay their respects to the men and women who have given their lives for us.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have every right to protest peacefully if they wish, though the conduct of some has been disgraceful. But they should now ask themselves whether it is really wise to hold their march on November 11. For if they go ahead, many more people will suspect that their true aim is not to protest on behalf of the people caught up in the fighting in Gaza, but to attack Britain and its values.

There is also surely a risk of much worse disorder. Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday are supposed to be about quiet reflection, gratitude, and honouring our Armed Forces. It would be tragic if they were to descend into something far more ugly.