Zack Polanski urges Home Secretary to retract her 'offensive' accusations regarding Saturday's Palestine demonstration & review the evidence

 

Zack Polanski speaking at the Palestine Rally on Saturday

 

Zack Polanski,  deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, has written to the Home Secretary about the policing of Saturday's peaceeful Palestine demonstration in London.

 

Dear Home Secretary, 

  

I am a London Assembly member who attended and spoke at the peaceful Palestine Solidarity rally this weekend. 

The police were informed of our intention to protest against the decision to ban the march to the BBC. It was announced that a small delegation would walk silently and peacefully towards the BBC and lay flowers to commemorate the deceased if and when we were stopped by the police. Among our group were parliamentarians Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, along with many community organisations. 

As shown in many videos, police had agreed through negotiation that the delegation could pass through and lay flowers. However, they subsequently allowed a much larger group into Trafalgar Square. It is concerning to see Metropolitan Police tweets falsely stating that people were “forcing through.” 

Such language feeds false and often racist narratives about the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s protests that have been peaceful. 

I’m also disturbed by your own communications suggesting there was an intention to disrupt a synagogue. Many Jewish participants, including myself, find this accusation offensive. The goal was to protest the BBC's failure to report the genocide accurately, and this was planned quite some distance from the synagogue and way after services had ended. 

Public trust in our institutions is already fragile. Politicising the police and smearing innocent people only worsens this. I urge you to review the evidence including footage from body worn cameras from the event, retract your comments and clarify the situation with the Metropolitan Police.  

Thank you for your attention in this matter, 

Zack Polanski

Green Party Member of the London Assembly

 

 

The new Home Secretary's Brent (Kenton and Wembley) connections

 Suella Braverman

 

This article was published on Wembley Matters in 2020, LINK when Suella Braverman was appointed by Boris Johnson. It was submitted by someone who was at school with her. It sheds some light on the new Home Secretary and her ambitions.

Following Boris Johnson's appointment of Suella Braverman (nee Fernandes) as attorney general (shortly after she attacked judges as unelected and unaccountable) it is interesting to hear from someone who was at school with her in the 1990s:

 

Sue Ellen Fernandes (who prefers to be known as Suella, so as not to be compared to a character in the 1980's TV series "Dallas") grew up in Kenton.

 

Her mother was a Conservative councillor on Brent Council, Uma Fernandes (who, as a candidate for Parliament, managed third place in the Brent East by-election won by Sarah Teather in 2003).

 

By the sixth form at school, Suella was open about her ambition to be a Conservative M.P., and to become Prime Minister, like her idol, Margaret Thatcher.

 

She studied law at Cambridge, and went on to become a barrister, specialising in planning law, but also spending time trying to get selected as a Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

 

One of the roles that helped on her Tory CV was acting as Chair of Governors for Katherine Birbalsingh's Michaela Community School LINK, although her knowledge of planning law did not seem to cover the fact that consent was needed to display a large advertisement over its building in Wembley Park LINK:

 

The advert had to be taken down after a few days - a waste of taxpayers money that could have been avoided!

Suella was elected for the "safe" Conservative seat of Fareham in Hampshire in 2015. Now, at the age of 39, this "aspirational" junior barrister has been appointed by Boris Johnson as the Government's top legal adviser.

 

Heaven help us!

 Seven years earlier I wrote on Wembley Matters about an encounter I had with her at a 'consultation' about Michaela Free School which is quite revealing of her attitude towards the public. LINK

 

Suella is a daughter of former Brent Conservative councillor Uma Fernandes who was a councillor for 16 years and stood in the Brent East parliamentary constituency, and Suella herself stood as a Conservative candidate in Fryent ward. She attended a local Brent primary school, Uxendon Manor, but her secondary education was at Heathfield School in Pinner - a Girls Public Day School Trust establishment.