Gavin Grey: UK Correspondent on student protests and antisemitism

Kier Starmer has urged students not to protest on the anniversary of the October 7 attacks.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey told Ryan Bridge that they aren't listening. 

In London on Saturday nearly 500 people were arrested in a protest linked to Palestine Action which has been labelled a terrorist organisation by the UK Government. 

Starmer warns of rising antisemitism while protesters say conflating the Israeli Government's actions and Jewish people is antisemitic. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Starma says, don't go out and protest October seventh. Are
they listening, Let's go to Devin Gray. Are UK europe
correspondent Gavin.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Ryan, They most certainly are not. So We've had students
out on the streets across London from different universities, but
also Edinburgh in Scotland, Belfast in Northern Ireland and elsewhere
in the UK, Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol and Leeds, and the
resounding message to secure Starma is well, look, actually, yep, okay,
We're sorry for what happened a couple of years back

(00:30):
on the October the seventh Hamas attack on Israel, but
that is not what we are protesting about. We are
protesting about the treatment of people currently in Gaza. Indeed,
one of the protesters at Sheffield said, what is insensitive
is that there has been two years of genocide and
conflating the actions of Binyaminnette and Yahoo with Judaism is

(00:51):
actually anti Semitic. Carrying on this Jewish people are not
pro genocide and Palestinians are starving right now, lots of
angry students on the streets and frankly, every time I
think our Prime Minister says, please show a little respect
for others. I think it kind of makes them even
more angry and said that isn't the point here and
this is not what we're going to do. And so consequently, yeah,

(01:14):
we've seen plenty of marches today. And let's not forget
Ryan that on Saturday police in London arrested nearly five
hundred people during protests and support of a prescribed group
of Palestine Action that they voted to make a terrorist
group where support for it or showing any kind of
membership of it can lead to a custodial sentence.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Gavin the French, the mess politically, an absolute mess at
the moment, and there are calls from the kron because
he's sending out the PM is just resigned to go
and fix the whole thing that he couldn't fix in
the first place. But calls for him to just appoint
a new PM and then get out of the call
some early presidential elections.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yes and round for a change. This isn't his opponents
in this These are now some of his own supporters
from within his own party, and that I think really
does signal just how isolated he is now. Indeed, Gabrielle Attal,
he leads Immanuel Macron's Renaissance Party and was Prime minister
for six months last year, went on National TV to

(02:13):
say quote, he no longer understands the decisions made by
the President of the Republic. I mean, if ever, there
was a stabbing in the front hand the back, it
is that so far forty seven year old Emmanual Macron
has refused to resign. But frankly his options are really
narrowing at the moment, with political opponents on the radical left,
the hard rid and now even his own allies indicating

(02:35):
he should go. A recent opinion poll suggested that well
over half the French population thinks he should resign. And this,
of course now, I think we've had three French prime
ministers in the last year, five in the last two years.
None of them are able to push through what Emmanual
Macron wants, which is a cut to the cost of

(02:57):
government spending and an increase in taxes. All of them
are being defeated by not just opponents, but also the
country at large that does not want to see their
standard of living for.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Kevin Gray are UK europe correspondents for.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
More from early edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
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