Greater Manchester Chief Constable has said that there were people in Manchester celebrating the Bondi attack in ways that were just sickeningly distasteful.
Stephen Watson told an event hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank:
“I know that I had reports that there were people in Manchester celebrating the Bondi attack in ways which is just sickeningly distasteful. It seems to me that we need to get to the heart of that, we need to get behind that, because there is stuff which is lawful, but it is intolerable, and what is intolerable can, over time, become unlawful — and that’s where politicians come in.
Yesterday The Met Police and Greater Manchester Police said that they will take a more ‘assertive’ approach to pro-Palestine protestors who chant ‘globalise the intifada’ because of the ‘escalating threat context’
Sir Mark Rowley, head of Met Police, and Sir Stephen Watson, the head of Greater Manchester Police, issued a statement saying they will take action despite the CPS advising that it doesn’t meet the prosecution threshold”
Watson said:
‘I think it’s some very important point to reflect upon that Jewish children are the only children in our country who, day to day, go to school behind large fences guarded by people with busy jackets, and where there are routine police patrols in and around those areas. Our Jewish communities put up with a way of life in our country today that nobody else has to put up with. I do think that there is something very significant in that, something very significant in the realisation of it, and we all, I think need to question ourselves afresh as the dynamic continues to change as to whether what we are doing continues to be adequate.’
