'Disgraceful': Police forced to protect Cenotaph with huge barriers as protests threaten to trash monument

Now fears are rising that the 103-year-old monument could be vandalised ahead of the annual November commemoration to honour fallen soldiers.

GB News’ Christopher Hope posted online: “It is very sad to see barriers protecting the Cenotaph on Whitehall today in the run up to Remembrance Sunday next month.”

WATCH NOW: GB News' Nigel Farage fumes over Cenotaph

He said that Rishi Sunak’s spokesman informed him that it “would be disgraceful to see any of our national monuments” caught up in protests.

The spokesman added: “We have confidence that the police have the clarity to police protests robustly.”

It comes after pro-Palestinian supporters raised a stand in front of the century-old memorial earlier this month.

Tom Tugendhat, the UK’s security minister, said the area on Whitehall is “sacred ground” and objected to the installation of the stall.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

• ‘They should fly a deluded flag!’ Fiery debate erupts after Pride flag torn down at pro-Palestine protest
• Tube driver who led 'deeply troubling' pro-Palestine chant suspended
• Met Police 'a JOKE' - Officers say they'll 'speak' to protestor who called for Jihad in Britain

Tugendhat, a former soldier, told Sky News: “It's disgraceful. To many of us, the Cenotaph is sacred ground. There's a reason it matters so much to our national consciousness.

“It's not just a memory of wars past, where many of our grandparents... fought in the First and Second World Wars, but for many of us, it's a very living memory to our friends we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan or indeed in other conflicts around the world.

“So frankly, the fact that there is a stage there is absolutely outrageous.

“I'm told the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign didn't even ask Westminster Council for permission to put it up and I'll be doing everything I can in making sure it's not allowed to happen again.”

The monument, erected on Remembrance Day in 1920, commemorates the “glorious dead” who sacrificed their lives fighting in both World Wars.

Nile Gardiner, an ex-aide to Margaret Thatcher, said: “The Cenotaph is the UK's most sacred war memorial, remembering all who died defending the British people and the British Empire in two world wars.

“The Britain-hating Islamists supporting Hamas terror have no right to be anywhere near this sacred ground.”

GB News commentator Darren Grimes also said: “This is a damn disgrace. A pro-Palestinian platform next to the Cenotaph, the focus of our nation’s remembrance, commemorating those who fought and died to liberate a continent.

“Who would possibly approve such a thing? Is this what Sadiq Khan’s London looks like? It’s appalling.”