James Cleverly is too late to lock the stable door & rein in the mob – the police have lost control

ON a sunny spring evening last week, five young black men walked shoulder-to-shoulder through London’s Green Park Tube station.

I have no idea who they were but they had everyone’s attention, shouting: “White guys are frightened. White guys are right to be frightened.”

This was living proof — unimaginable until recently — that Western democracy is engaged in irreconcilable ­conflict.

This clash has been ­brewing in the West since the murder almost four years ago today of George Floyd by a Minneapolis cop, unleashing the curse of identity politics.

Black Lives Matter immediately proved they were above the law by screaming into the faces of impotent cops while the rest of Britain was locked up by Covid.

That was the day police ­surrendered to the mob.

Far from acting as forces of law and order, they took sides, skateboarding with XR morons and bringing a cuppa to spoiled brats blocking traffic.

Home Secretary James ­Cleverly will today try to lock the stable door by banning aggressive marchers, the ­wearing of face masks and fund-raising by extremists.

The light-touch plans are contained in a report by Lord Walney, government “adviser on political violence”.

“Militant groups like Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil are using criminal tactics to create mayhem and hold the public and workers to ransom without fear of consequence,” says Walney.

“Banning terror groups has made it harder for their ­activists to plan crimes — that approach should be extended to extreme protest groups too.”

But it’s too late, m’lord.

The police have lost control and are not so keen on taking it back.

On Saturday, for the 32nd week since Hamas butchered 1,200 innocent young Jews on October 7, pro-Gaza protestors were on the march.

Emboldened by earlier cries of support for Hamas, they raised the temperature further with calls for “Intifada, ­revolution” and warning “UK government — watch your back”. Is that a threat?

One or two were arrested, but the march passed unhindered.

Everyone has the right to protest, said one of the cops.

Unless, of course, you are “openly Jewish” or carrying a sign saying: “Hamas is ­terrorist”.

The moment for ­effective police action has passed.

As the recent election of loudmouth Green Party fanatics revealed, we have mindlessly imported Gaza’s molten fury on to the streets of Britain.

Police can no longer nab more than one or two rabble-rousers without risking a ­violent backlash — backed by deluded university dunces.

Identity politics divides us like oil and water.

Some cultures and religions have no truck with the concept of states, governments and ­territorial borders.

This opens real dividing lines for the looming General ­Election between the dithering Tories and Keir Starmer’s party of open borders.

Gaza’s molten fury

Rwanda may not be the ­perfect answer, but it beats Labour’s open arms amnesty plans.

Starmer’s talk about improving border cooperation with our European “partners” is hot air.

His party’s true position is closer to backbench MPs, who want to take in Gaza refugees, among them numerous Hamas supporters.

Tens of thousands of illegal migrants, including criminals, are already here in hostels converted from four-star hotels and patrolled by needlessly masked “security” officers.

They would swiftly be ­emptied on to the overcrowded housing market by Labour plans to speed up visas.

A crisis across Europe has spun out of control thanks to the EU’s cherished “open ­borders”, unleashing an ­explosion of violence in once-serene countries like Sweden.

Now in peril

So far Britain has been spared serious violence, perhaps thanks to our hospitality to refugees.

October 7 changed all that.

Pro-Gaza marchers are not ­listening.

They detest Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy and the one country there that ­tolerates free speech and gay rights.

Indeed Israel’s very survival as a sovereign state is now in peril.

To many, Jews are no longer seen as oppressed ­victims of Nazi genocide.

Anti-Semitism is seen as an excuse for “racism”.

Jews are deemed to be white and ­therefore “privileged”.

In the ugly words of those Piccadilly Line Tube riders, they are frightened.

They and millions of ­others — white, black, Christian, ­Jewish or Muslim — are right to be frightened.