Protesters ignore Starmer's pleas as pro-Palestine rallies go ahead

Pro-Palestine activists in the UK have held protests on the second anniversary of the 7 October attacks in Israel, despite pleas by Keir Starmer to cancel the “un-British” rallies.

- Chris Osuh Libby Brooks Geneva Abdul

The prime minister said the events showed “little respect for others” while Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary; Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader; and Robert Jenrick, the shadow lord chancellor, also spoke out on the issue.

However, within hours, a university protest began weaving its way through central London. A German student, draped in an Israeli flag was among the outnumbered counter-protesters.

"I'm not showing my support for the Israeli government or the war in Gaza but just for the Israeli people who have gone through something so, so terrible two years ago," the student said. "A lot of my friends who are Jewish, who are Israeli, on a day like today they're terrified and they feel completely alone in their pain of that day.

"This is not a show of my political affiliation, this is just a show for my compassion for the Jewish people."

With Palestinian flags, keffiyehs, drums and a banner listing the names and ages of those killed in Gaza, students snaked their way through the streets walled by police, to the London School of Economics and then Soas University of London, with many saying the government was attempting to silence them.