Kemi Badenoch criticised for saying she would ban pro-Palestine marches but not Tommy Robinson ones

Kemi Badenoch has been criticised for saying that she would ban marches against the war in Gaza, but not Tommy Robinson ones.

The Tory leader first made the comments in an interview with BBC Journalist Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, and defended them again in an interview yesterday. 

On BBC Radio 4 yesterday, Nick Robinson asked Badenoch why she wouldn’t ban Tommy Robinson marches, despite the far-right figure being “overtly anti-Muslim”. 

He asked: “Why allow him [Robinson] to march and not people who want to protest about the plight of people in Gaza?”. 

The Tory leader said it “wasn’t a defence at all of Tommy Robinson” and insisted “I don’t endorse anything he does”. 

Badenoch went on to say that the marches “are different”, and claimed that the pro-Palestine marches are “every week” and involve marching in front of synagogues. 

She also said “people who are visibly Jewish [get] harassed and abused” due to the protests.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which organises many of these marches, has denied ever having requested to march past synagogues, and in fact said “we have no interest in doing so”. 

Badenoch did not provide any examples to back up her claim that pro-Palestine protestors harass and abuse “visibly Jewish” people.

The Tory leader then said: “The Tommy Robinson marches often turn into violence, other groups turn up, they get into a squabble, police officers are hurt.”

Badenoch then went on to draw a link between the Palestine protests and the antisemitic attack on a synagogue in Heaton Park, Manchester which resulted in two Jewish people being killed, as well as last week’s stabbings in Golders Green. 

The attacker stabbed two Jewish people, and his friend, who is a Muslim. 

When challenged by Robinson that the attackers were not protestors, she said it was “part of the normalisation of these attitudes”.

Asked how she would respond to Muslims who feel threatened by Robinson’s marches, Badenoch said: “It’s not even the same,” saying that criticism of religion is allowed, and that she is talking about attacks on Jews. 

Both Muslims and Jewish people are heavily targeted in hate crimes. 

In 2024/25, there were 4,478 religious hate crimes carried out against Muslims, and 2,873 hate crimes against Jewish people.

Responding to Badenoch’s comments, Lindsey German, national convenor at Stop the War, said: “It’s open season on Palestine protests. I watched in astonishment as Tory leader Kemi Badenoch claimed on the BBC flagship Laura Kuenssberg show both that our marches deliberately target synagogues, and that while they should be banned, the Tommy Robinson demo should not be because he is not targeting a specific group and they don’t create a climate of intimidation and violence. This beggars belief.”

German noted that at Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march last September, protestors tore up a Palestine flag on stage, and his supporters threatened anti-racism counter protestors and hurled objects and abuse at the police.

She continued: “Unfortunately however she is not alone. The British establishment has decided to launch a major onslaught on the mass movement for Palestine solidarity in Britain. One of the biggest and most sustained movements in British history is being calumnied as racist and antisemitic, as causing fear to the whole Jewish population, and as incubating violence and terrorism.”

Peter Leary, Deputy Director at Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “It is disgraceful that Kemi Badenoch has tried to falsely link peaceful political protests for Palestinian rights with totally unconnected acts of violence. No less alarming are her attempts to legitimise Tommy Robinson and his far right supporters.

“The organisers of the far right demonstration are fascists and Islamophobes who have advocated the antisemitic great replacement theory. In contrast, our marches bring together people from all backgrounds, including thousands of Jewish people, in opposition to every form of bigotry including anti-Palestinian racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia.”

On BlueSky, people challenged Badenoch’s comments, with one user saying: “A protest with the stated aim of opposing a foreign state’s genocide is too racist, a protest to ‘Take back our country [from the non-whites]’ is not racist enough to worry about.”

Another wrote: “She maligns people protesting genocide but defends openly Islamophobic marches. She’s an absolute disgrace.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward