UK PM Sunak calls on police chiefs to get tough on ‘mob’ protests

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called on the country’s police chiefs to use the full spectrum of their powers to ensure that protests are not allowed to descend into “mob rule”.

The British Indian leader was speaking after a meeting at 10 Downing Street on Wednesday during which ministers and senior police chiefs agreed to sign up to a new “democratic policing protocol”.

It comes in the wake of growing security concerns for British MPs and some violent incidents during large-scale marches on the streets of the UK in protest over the raging Israel-Hamas conflict.

“There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule. And we’ve got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently,” said Sunak.

“We simply cannot allow this pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour which is, as far as anyone can see, intended to shout down free debate and stop elected representatives doing their job. That is simply undemocratic,” he said.

He said it was right that the new protocol committed to extra patrols and provided clarity by stating that protests at the homes of MPs, councillors and other democratically elected representatives should be “generally considered to be intimidatory”.