The London Borough of Tower Hamlets has announced that it would finally remove Palestinian flags from its streets after months of backlash and claims that the local government was violating the law.
The Labour Party-controlled council said this week that it had decided to remove Palestinian flags from street furniture and public buildings in Tower Hamlets after consulting with the Metropolitan Police while blaming “unfair and divisive sentiment” from critics of flying foreign flags on public property.
A council spokesman told the BBC: “Tower Hamlets is one of the most diverse places in the country and we have seen Palestinian flags put up by residents on private and public land during the recent Middle East conflict.”
“Until now, the council has decided not to remove the flags because we believe it could destabilise community cohesion,” the spokesman added.
The move comes nearly five months after Transport for London (TfL) said that “unauthorised flags” would be removed from its infrastructure in the borough.
Local Conservative Councillor Peter Golds also claimed that the council had commissioned a lawyer to write a report on the issue, which he said found that the “flags contravened planning law and therefore were unlawful.”
“There are many people who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but at the same time we don’t want to see lampposts in every street covered with flags, of any kind,” Golds said, adding: “They should have acted weeks ago.”
Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman blamed “media attacks” and the rise of “Islamophobia” for pressuring the council into deciding to remove the Palestinan flags, citing comments from Conservative MP Paul Scully who claimed that there were “no-go” areas in the borough.
“We have been described as a no-go area by a senior Conservative MP, and received notice from the government that an immediate inspection of the council would begin that day and continue over the coming months,” Rahman said.
“Numerous articles have been published about the borough in the past fortnight, often littered with inaccuracies and Islamophobic smears. Sadly, it is clear the Palestinian flags flying in the borough have been the focus of these media attacks.”
The Tower Hamlets mayor added that he believed that the alleged rise in Islamophobia in the British capital has made “Tower Hamlets, with the highest Muslim population in the UK, a target”.
In November, just weeks after the October 7th Hamas terror attacks on Israel which left around 1,200 people dead and saw hundreds more taken captive, a man was arrested in the Bethnal Green area of Tower Hamlets after posting a video complaining that the streets were adorned with Palestinian flags.
“You let them into the country and this is the shite they come up with,” he said. Police later came to his home and arrested the man, citing the comment as the justification for the arrest.