The Metropolitan Police have imposed strict conditions on a United Kingdom Independence Party demonstration in London this weekend amid fears of “serious disorder”.
Scotland Yard said there would be an “increased visible police presence” for the anti-migrant protest and counter-protest on Saturday afternoon.
The announcement comes after the force banned UKIP supporters from gathering in Tower Hamlets — which has the highest proportion of Muslim residents in England and Wales — prompting concerns it could inflame community tensions.
UKIP’s “Whitechapel crusade” will now start outside the Brompton Oratory, a Catholic church in Kensington and Chelsea, and end by Marble Arch in the City of Westminster.
The rally is part of a series of events taking place across Britain which were promoted as a “mass deportations tour”.
UKIP leader Nick Tenconi hit back at the ban with an angry response accusing the Met of “caving into the Islamists” and violating “our democratic right to peaceful assembly”.
He added: "This is two-tier policing at its worst, and the Met have, at best, signified they have lost control of the streets of London.”
Meanwhile, a solidarity march organised by Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) is due to take place in east London.
But the Met said it was “also aware of plans by some SUTR protesters to stage a counter protest” in central London against the revised UKIP march.
“It is our continued belief that if these two groups were to come together there would be a risk of serious disorder,” the Metropolitan Police said.
In response it has banned SUTR from gathering in an area of central London including where the Ukip protest will take place.
The Met have barred them from gathering in Brompton and Hans Town, Knightsbridge and Belgravia, Hyde Park, St James’s, Marylebone and the West End where the UKIP are congregating.
Commander Nick John, who is in charge of public order policing in London this weekend, said: “Our role in relation to the policing of protest is to ensure that they take place peacefully, that offences are dealt with, that they do not cause excessive disruption to the ordinary lives of local residents, visitors and businesses and to ensure that where there is a prospect of disorder we take action to prevent it.
“The risk of such disorder can be elevated if groups with clearly opposing views are allowed to gather in close proximity to each other, particularly if they do so in the heart of a residential area at a time when tensions and fears in relation to hate crime and similar offences are heightened.”
He added: “We intervened earlier this week to use our powers under the Public Order Act to prevent a protest taking place in Whitechapel due to the prospect of serious disorder.
“This was not a ‘ban’ as it has been described in some coverage and commentary, but a requirement for the protest to move if it was to go ahead.
“We have used the same power on many occasions over the past two years when policing demonstrations by various groups.”
Tower Hamlets has been the site of several anti-migrant demonstrations in recent months, after it emerged that the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf was being used to accommodate asylum seekers.
Earlier this month, Tower Hamlets Council passed a motion to “stand up to the far right”, pledging to “reject” the presence of agitators from the area who come to “target” ethnic and religious minorities.
