What kind of country are we if you get abuse for waving the national flag, asks Mark Dolan

We've seen a tension between free speech and hate speech, and a tension between the tolerance of foreign values versus the protection of British values. Every weekend, with these often disturbing demonstrations in central London, Manchester and beyond, the authorities, and in particular the police, have got the balance badly wrong.

Masquerading as peace marches, these demonstrations have every single time descended into something far nastier, with disorder on the streets, the chanting of slogans like “From the River to the Sea” and calls for “intifada”, which means suicide bombs on buses and in restaurants.

Our hapless cops have stood idly by as dangerous thugs call for a jihad or a holy war. All of this messaging is based around one thing and one thing alone, the hatred of Jewish people. If significant numbers of people can call for a holy war in the United Kingdom, in our capital city, then who runs Britain? Who policies our streets and who stands up for British values?

Our brilliant reporter Katherine Forster revealed that British citizens merely waving the Union Jack flag, which is the flag of this country, were subjected to harassment, threats and abuse this weekend. Meanwhile, these wonderful volunteers handing out poppies and raising money for our war veterans were similarly subjected to appropriate levels of harassment that you've seen in regard to that other story. Deeply chilling stuff.

Now, I'm concerned about casualties on both sides in the Middle East. Gaza is hell on earth right now, thanks to Hamas, I should add. And a two state solution is clearly the Holy Grail. And it's my view that Israel likely has a case to answer for its treatment of Palestinians. Taking sides in the Middle East is a fool's errand.

But unlike so many woke progressives in this country, including a few high profile ones, I will never offer succor, however indirect, to terrorists. To go on or support these marches so soon after the horrors of October the 7th whatever way you look at it encourages these medieval monsters who think nothing of beheading babies.

And calls from the be kind brigade of deluded lefties for a ceasefire, merely an invitation for further attacks and an effective second Holocaust on the Jewish people. Not very nice at all, is it?

What kind of country are we, if you get abuse for waving the national flag? What kind of country are we where one group of people, in this case Jews, can be singled out for hatred and persecution and physical threats?

What kind of country are we where Jewish people feel safer in Israel, one of the most threatened territories on the planet, than they do in Great Britain? What kind of country are we where the annual tribute to our war dead, who gave their lives for the values which are now being trashed every weekend in front of the Cenotaph faces major disruption. It's possible that two minute silence will be disturbed next weekend.

It's my view that the authorities have lost control of our national population because the actions of thousands now in the name of free speech are an affront to British values and, as the Prime Minister said recently, a threat to our democracy.

You've got a school teacher from Batley, still on the run, still in hiding, having lost his job and career for the great crime of showing an image of the Prophet Muhammad as an educational tool. And you've got the cervix free leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, who, having worn one earlier in the day for a keynote speech at Chatham House, later removed his poppy, there of course to remember our fallen heroes, whilst addressing British Muslims.

The mysterious case of the missing poppy. Agatha Christie, eat your heart out.

I've got a spare one here if you want it. Labour have said the absence of a poppy for that video was not in any way intentional. Poppycock. That the man who would like to be our next Prime Minister should so readily yield to the mob and discard the memory of our war dead in order to placate one particular community tells you everything you need to know about his character, about his values, and about what kind of leader he would be.

I fear he would lead us into what is becoming a civil war. We are either one country with one set of values and one set of laws, or we are not. You can't have it both ways. Who runs Britain at the moment? No one. And that's the problem.