Why are hateful pro-Palestine rallies acceptable and anti-migrant protests not?

Thank you for subscribing!

I fear these marches against mass immigration will continue to spread, writes GB News columnist Carole Malone

I am confused. Can someone please explain the difference between the Stop the Boats Protest in Dover on Saturday and all those pro-Palestinian demonstrations over the past two-and-a-half years?

Maybe it is the little matter of arrests. There were absolutely none in Dover. No arrests. No violence. However, there have been thousands in London, coupled with violence, intimidation and harassment of people just trying to go about their business.

The furore over the masked-up protestors in Dover seems not to be about their actual behaviour but about their attire – the fact they were masked up and dressed in black. Much like Black Lives Matter demonstrators used to be.

“Intimidating," screamed the media. “Threatening," screamed local councillors who seemed to have no clue the protests were even happening until they were informed by the media, which shows how tuned into local affairs they are.

“Thuggish”, screamed politicians, many of whom condemned the protests out of hand.

But were those few hundred protestors in Dover any more intimidating than the chanting pro-Palestinian mobs swathed in black and white Keffiyehs, who have been marching through London’s streets every weekend since October 7 chanting “From The River to the Sea” and "Globalise the intifada"?

My immediate thought at the weekend was why the people screaming about the few hundred protestors in Dover on Saturday not been screaming about the thousands taking part in those aggressive Pro-Palestinian protests that have made London’s streets a no-go area for Jews at weekends, which have spawned thousands of arrests, adversely affected businesses, disrupted traffic for hours and intimidated people trying to go about their daily lives.

Why are those marches acceptable and the one that happened in Dover on Saturday not?

My guess is because one of the “causes” is a left-wing one deemed to be on the right side of history. The other is deemed to be a far-right, nationalistic cause which is on the side of evil because it involves illegal immigration.

Did this Government not imagine at some point anger would spill over about the tens of thousands of people arriving illegally on small boats with little or no effort being made to stop them?

Did they not think there would be a reaction to the fact hard-working British taxpayers are having to fork out billions every year to pay for illegal migrants who come here pretending to be asylum seekers but just want to pimp off the British state?

Did they not think people would be fuming at having been promised sweeping new migrant reforms only to discover this Government has now chickened out of making Shabana Mahmood’s tough new reforms a reality?

We have a Government that talks tough on illegal immigration, but when push comes to shove, it does absolutely nothing and people have had enough.

Were those masked-up men we saw on Saturday who call themselves Patriot Platform intimidating? Yes, to some they might have been. Yet they were no more intimidating than the pro-Palestinian mobs.

And ask yourself why these men hid their faces. Because, in past form, they know this Government will target them as being “far right" and possibly jail them just like they did with Lucy Connolly.

Yes, that protest at the weekend was disruptive. It was meant to be. That is what protests do – they disrupt. They annoy people. They hold up traffic. They stop people getting to where they want to go in the hope it will draw attention to their cause.

However, it was not anywhere near as disruptive as the Notting Hill Carnival just two weeks ago, where 7,000 cops were on the streets, 600 people arrested, 14 people stabbed, 18 detained for sexual assaults, emergency workers attacked and dozens more held on drug offences. Aside from this, this was hailed as a "vibrant cultural celebration".

Did Patriot Platform stop any ambulances getting sick people to hospital like Just Stop Oil did? Did they deface or damage buildings? Did they harass or hurt anyone?

No, they just dressed up like an army of Milk Tray men, stuck on a mask, trying to stop illegal migrants arriving on the shores in Dover.

A Government spokesman said: “The right to peaceful protests is fundamental to our democracy but we condemn the behaviour in Dover and the disruption it caused.”

I am sorry, but in terms of actual crime this was a peaceful protest. It was a damn sight more peaceful than the one in London this weekend staged by activists who are supporters of the now proscribed Palestine Action group. There were 14 arrests there.

And if we are talking disruption, how much travel disruption and criminal behaviour have the pro-Palestinian protests spawned? How much police time and money have they wasted? How much fear have they instilled into people living in London – particularly Jews who are told not to wear their kippahs at weekends in case it inflames hatred from the mob?

But hey, Palestine is the "right" cause. Illegal immigration is the “wrong” one.

I fear these anti-immigration protests will spread. They already have. Hundreds of protestors descended on Portsmouth on Sunday night after 140 migrants on a single dinghy were brought to shore.

Patriot Platform have warned these protests are only the beginning. And I think many Britons will support them (they were already doing it at the weekend, bringing the protesters food and water) because they are sick to the back teeth of being taken for fools by a Government taking in illegal migrants from cultures alien to ours and expecting us to pay for them.

If this Government continues to ignore people’s legitimate concerns about both legal and illegal immigration, what just happened in Germany – where the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party just won the East German state election – will happen here. If illegal immigration continues to go unchecked and thousands of unvetted, undocumented men from the world’s most brutal and misogynistic regimes keep flooding here, then the British people will vote for a government vowing to stop that.

Were those protestors in Dover anywhere near as dangerous to our society as those illegal migrants – men mainly from the Middle East and Africa – who are coming here and who pose a real and present danger to British citizens, especially women?

The fact is ordinary people have had enough. They know now it is not far-right or racist to want to cut the numbers of illegals coming here who they know pose a danger to the British public.

They know it is not racist to say taking in tens of thousands of men from cultures totally alien to our own is a danger to our women and children.

They know it is not racist to say we cannot afford to keep paying billions to feed and house people who should not be here.

Yet, we have a Government that clearly thinks it is. And so, it does nothing to stop it.