A video has captured the moment a Met Police officer tells a Jewish woman that the use of swastikas during a pro-Palestine march needed to be “taken into context”.
The footage shows an activist at Saturday’s protest in London embroiled in a heated exchange with the officer over the Nazi symbol being displayed by protesters.
The officer is filmed debating the use of the symbol, that will forever be associated with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party in Germany.
During one tense moment, the woman raged that the symbol “is anti-semetic” and though the officer responded that he “didn’t say it wasn’t”, the woman continued: “If someone is carrying a sign with a swastika, you said you wouldn’t arrest them on the spot, it would have to be investigated online?”
A second officer then interjects: “A swastika on its own, I don’t think is…”
Campaigners lashed out at the “absolutely gobsmacking” interaction, with one branding it “an indictment of the Met”.
It comes as the Met had assured the public ahead of Saturday’s demonstration it would take “swift and decisive action” when it came to lawbreakers.
As well as this, Robin Simcox – the UK’s counter-extremism expert – warned London was quickly becoming a “no-go zone for Jews”.
Following the footage going viral, a spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism told MailOnline: “This interaction is absolutely gobsmacking.
“The very notion that a British police officer could imagine a context in which the Nazi swastika is an acceptable image to be displayed in public is distressing enough, but for him to be uncertain about its meaning in the context of a march oozing with anti-Semitic rhetoric and signage is an indictment of the Met.
“This is less the fault of a solitary officer than it is of Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who has bent over backwards to rationalise and ‘contextualise’ calls for violent Jihad and genocidal chanting.
“If Sir Mark disagrees with this officer’s assessment, he should come out and say so and explain what training he will provide to his officers to ensure that they are clear that Nazism is bad.
“But if he agrees that the swastika is context-dependent, let him tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Britons who gave their lives to prevent that despicable symbol from ever being flown on the streets of London.”
A spokesman for the Met Police told Express.co.uk: “We’re aware of an online clip from today’s protest in central London showing an interaction between an officer and a woman during which there is an exchange over concern around protesters displaying offensive banners, including swastikas.
“The online clip is a short excerpt of what was a 10-minute conversation with the officer. During the full conversation, the officer establishes that the person the woman was concerned about had already been arrested for a public order offence in relation to a placard.
“The officer then offered to arrange for other officers to attend and accompany the woman to identify any other persons she was concerned about amongst the protesters, but after turning to speak to his supervisor, she then unfortunately left.
“We take hate crime and public order offences very seriously and a number of people were arrested during today’s protest for hate crimes, public order and terrorist offences. We are also gathering and assessing evidence with a view to making further arrests where we identify any other offences.
“If anyone is aware of any other evidence of people with offensive banners or material, please let us know via @MetCC on X (Twitter) or via our website: www.met.police.uk/report.”
In total, four people were arrested during the protest – which saw around 200,000 people take part. It was calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
