West Midlands Police Won’t Commit to Arrests for Chanting ‘Globalise the Intifada’
West Midlands Police, already reeling from an antisemitism scandal after banning Israeli fans from attending a football match, has refused to commit to arresting all protesters who chant ‘globalise the intifada’. The Telegraph has more.
West Midlands Police (WMP) officers will not routinely detain activists who use the phrase, which has been widely adopted by pro-Palestinian protesters since the October 7th terrorist attack of 2023.
The force was embroiled in an antisemitism row last month after concluding it was too “high risk” for Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters to attend a fixture against Aston Villa.
WMP’s stance on “globalise the intifada” arrests is at odds with the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police (GMP), both of which have said that anyone shouting such slogans would face arrests following the Bondi Beach massacre.
A WMP spokesman said: “If this occurred, where actions appeared intended or likely to incite violence, racial hatred or cause harassment, alarm and distress, we would take positive action, which may include making arrests, as each incident is always approached on a case by case basis.
“We reiterate our commitment to taking positive action in circumstances where any protester is breaking the law.”
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “West Midlands Police should follow the Met and Greater Manchester Police in making clear that chants for jihad and intifada are calls for violence and will always lead to arrest.
“West Midlands Police has already apparently engineered the ban of fans from an Israeli team based on fabricated evidence, so they should now be doing everything possible to restore confidence in their ability to protect the Jewish community.
“With antisemitism on the rise and the murder committed at a Manchester synagogue by an Islamist extremist, every police force must stand up to calls for violence.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism described the refusal to commit to the more robust policy as “a farce”.
A spokesman said: “It is particularly galling that West Midlands Police, still in the national spotlight over the Aston Villa fiasco, has not committed to this new policy.
“Even this modest, extremely belated step by the country’s two main police forces – which has taken two long years – isn’t carrying the support of colleagues nationwide.
“So you can be arrested for something in one county but your friend down the road can do it with impunity? There is no direction and a total absence of leadership in British policing.
“Police forces are terrified of standing up to extremists. But appeasing them will not make things easier later on. It will only make things deadlier.”
Worth reading in full.
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When interviewed, Chief Constables like to boast about their excellent relations with….Communities. Why risk imperiling that by doing traditional police work?
People simply shouldn’t be arrested for chanting anything during a march, no matter how politically offensive somebody believes it to be. That someone committed a mass murder in Australia is not a valid justification for restricting the rights of law-abiding people in Britain.
You are correct in that position, however that is not the world we live in the USSUK, so at least some balanced authoritarianism would be nice.
The problem with politically motivated censorship (including things like the all the ‘internet crime’ arrests after the Southport murders) is that authorities will always prosecute political statements they strongly disagree with and not prosecute political statements they don’t care about or even sympathize with. And the only solution to this problem is to prohibit authorities from doing that.
Indeed.
The problem is that the police apply the hate speech laws extremely selectively.
Woke causes are treated with maximum leniency and treated as expressions of freedom of speech.
At the same time, a somewhat awkwardly worded tweet will land you in prison. See Lucy Connolly’s case.
Dammit! Where’s the million up-votes button?
I’m not a lawyer but I believe there are legal restrictions on Incitement – we are not free to do this.
To use this nice example from a 19th century politician: There are material differences between discussing the selfish greed of merchants in parliament and preaching about it to a crowd of excited people in front of the house of one.
Nobody on these marches plans to incite anyone to anything and it cannot possibly happen, either. These are just morons shouting moronic stuff in the streets. There’s a German proberb, Gegen Dummheit streiten Götter selbst vergebens, even gods cannot conquer stupidity, and this is also true for trying to eliminate stupidity by prosecuting its public manifestations.
That people see it fit to voice their support for global, islamic terrorism in British streets is a problem but not one which can be solved by fining or jailing them for it because this won’t change their opinions.
The barbarians are inside the walls, and our hedonistic deluded neighbours think they are fluffy bunny people only here to doctor, engineer, and lawyer our nation to greatness.
That’s because the phrase “Globalise the intafada” is innocuous.
Israel Propagandists Are Uniformly Spouting the Exact Same Line About the Bondi Shooting demonizing the phrase “globalize the intifada” as if it has been co-ordinated.
https://www.unz.com/cjohnstone/israel-propagandists-are-uniformly-spouting-the-exact-same-line-about-the-bondi-shooting/
Here is a good response to the Met Police decision to arrest anyone using the phrase “Globalise the Intifada”.
“Open letter to Met police chief: Let me tell you what ‘Globalise the intifada’ actually means
Sir Mark Rowley, your primary concern is not public safety but protecting the interests of the British establishment. And it has decreed that no opposition to Israel’s genocide will be tolerated”.
Jonathan Cook
Dec 18, 2025
https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-met-police-chief-let
Genocides don’t generally result in static or population increase over the period, so thats a non starter.
And funny I haven’t heard any Jewish communities calling for the destruction of Little Satan, and I’m awaiting the report on the Jewish Rape Gangs in the UK too.
Frankly if the Isle of Man started launching missiles into the UK, I’m pretty sure it would be occupied or glass within a week, Israel’s patience is truly virtuous given their relative strengh to their psychotic neighbours.
Further if the UK, or any real country, was invaded for a day and 8400 people (relative UK population) was slaughtered and countless raped to death, I would call openly for total war against the aggressor.
Exactly.
And how many Jews drive vehicles into Christmas markets?
How many Jews blow themselves up in Ariana Grande concerts?
None.
Your moniker implies that there are two ways of seeing the same thing. There is also a right way and a wrong way. Try that as your starting point.
This would be the West Midlands Police who lied about the Dutch Police report on the Ajax v Maccabi Tel Aviv match claiming that their fans were labelled violent when the report said no such thing? So basically a jew-hating terrorist loving bunch of taxpayer funded employees.
Maybe the West Midlands Police are simply being honest in saying that these vile chants won’t automatically result in arrests.
Are other police forces going to insist their officers force their way into a hostile crowd of hundreds or thousands of people to arrest someone? If these chants are made by a small number of people in a much larger crowd how is it possible to prove who made them unless there’s CCTV footage that enables someone to read the lips of protesters?
I guess they haven’t got sufficient non-Muslim police officers to arrest half of Birmingham.
If only we had a National Guard we could send in to these foreign cities. While the idiot blob bleats on about arming to attack Russia, we would be better off spending our money on a home defence force.
Never mind woke etc the real reason is cowardice