Are we sure ?
OMG! Thatâs too dark. Even for the Big Orange One 
More UK terrorists arrested! Do you feel safer now?
They could have avoided arrest by making their signs say « I oppose the proscription of Palestine Action » , because that would not have expressed support for a terrorist organisation.
Why they chose otherwise is anyoneâs guess.
But tying up police resources unnecessarily ? Yes, that might well make someone feel more unsafe. Itâs certainly going to make real victims suffer worse delays awaiting their trial.
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Iâd much prefer that the police did something more useful than arrest OAPs peacefully protesting, but nah, waste of police time IMO
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That might also be completely ignored.
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Because NOT having a load of pensioners arrested doesnât give you so much press coverage for your cause.
Absolutely. These people were not harming or threatening anyone, so if you want to reduce their media coverage so that the protests fizzle out, then the best thing that the police could do is NOTHING.
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Just following orders. The right to freedom of speech and peaceful protest seems to now be under Heir Starmers view banned.
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Someone should be asking questions to parliament on the cost of this waste of police force officers time and the justice system, arenât the government looking to cut costs. A light police presence to help in emergency or help granny across the road is all they should be doing, oh also tell people the time if they ask so to leave early enough to catch the bus 
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Genuine question, to achieve a political end, i.e. the fizzling out of the protests, can the police ignore law-breaking (regardless of what we think of the specific law).
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The senior police officer of a Force Area can determine what is a policing priority, so technically the Met could have ignored the DOJ protest. Practically, theyâd be put into an indefensible position for reasons I donât need to explain.
Protest is - nowadays - less about persuading people to change their minds than causing mayhem and gaining attention for the cause.
So, while our own @John_Scully posts prolifically about the horrors of Gaza, alerting us to what is going on and encouraging us to do what we can, he is in the minority. Organisations like Just Stop Oil and Defend Our Juries donât seem interested in persuasion, just in publicity, and getting as much attention as they can.
A mass protest aimed at clogging up the CJ system is a fairly direct attack on one of the pillars of a civilised society. It would be great if it led to more resources for the CJ system, more court sittings, repairs of the CJ estate, âŠ; of course, it wonât.
Itâs much easier to ignore someone than an organisation that disrupts life, although JSO have also become pariahs and lost the good will of ordinary people. In the end, protests of one kind or another seem to focus on provocation and generation of anger, though often towards the protestor as much as the cause. There has to be a better way that brings the public on board.
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Sociopaths the lot of them all mentally ill in one form or another. There laid out my soul before my peers.
Was this referring to the police, or the MPs? Because, yes, I agree 
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I thought Corona was referring to the protestors! 
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Most of the time a police officer is entitled to raise his telescope to his blind eye if he / she feels it is appropriate to do so.
Section 41 of the Terrorism Act provides that a constable MAY arrest without a warrant a person whom he reasonably suspects to be a terrorist. (Source; UK College of Policing.) There is no obligation in law to actually do so. Section 40 of the Act classifies a person displaying a certain type of sign or placard as a âterroristâ.
The legislation specifically uses the word MAY rather than âshallâ arrest, which gives police officers scope to use their discretion. The obvious intent of using âmayâ rather than âshallâ is to allow officers to deal with minor infringements in ways other than by arrest. (A word or two of advice for example.) Before making ANY arrest for any offence, officers should weigh up the seriousness of the matter, consider whether arrest is necessary, and whether an arrest would be in the greater public interest.
So itâs not a matter of ignoring law-breaking, but rather a matter of dealing with minor and trivial infringements in a sensible way.
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Not with a massive spotlight of publicity on you, itâs not.
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So what happened to âwithout fear or favour, malice or ill willâ ?
The publicity should make no difference.
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