Kamala Harris sneaks out the back of Downing Street to avoid embarrassing confrontation with protesters
US Vice President Kamala Harris was snuck out of Downing Street via a back entrance as officials sought to rid any prospect of an embarrassing confrontation with protesters.
Harris is in the UK for Rishi Sunak’s AI Safety Summit, where she warned artificial intelligence safety had to go beyond “existential” fears about threats of cyber attacks or the developments of bioweapons.
It comes as protesters have been lining the streets of London calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Pro-Palestine demonstrations are taking place outside Downing Street as they attempt to deliver their message to the Vice President.
Protests take place outside Downing Street
GB NEWS
Footage from outside shows protesters chanting that she and Sunak have “blood on their hands”.
According to a transcript of remarks made during a meeting between Sunak and Harris, the pair discussed the situation in Israel and Gaza, Ukraine and AI.
The UK and US has been dealing with a swathe of protests in recent weeks in response to the conflict.
Some even visited Kamala Harris’ Brentwood home to make their voices heard.
Suella Braverman has dubbed the protests “hateful” in a scathing assessment as she called for tougher police action.
She urged officers to take a “zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism” after attending an emergency Cobra meeting chaired by Rishi Sunak on Monday.
The Prime Minister told police and the security agencies to conduct tabletop exercises simulating responses to counter-terror or public order scenarios, a Downing Street source said.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warned on Sunday that terrorism is being “accelerated” by events in the Middle East, as he raised concerns about “state threats from Iran”.
WATCH: Palestine protests take place outside Downing Street
palestine protests digi.MP4
Speaking after the Cobra meeting in Whitehall, Ms Braverman agreed with the view of the UK’s most senior officer but indicated the terror threat level was not being hiked yet.
She told broadcasters that the Joint Threat Assessment Centre that determines the level “has maintained its assessment to date”.
But she struck out at the marches that have been taking place across the UK in support of the Palestinian people as Gaza is besieged by Israel and coming under aerial bombardment.
“We’ve seen now tens of thousands of people take to the streets following the massacre of Jewish people, the single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map,” she said.
“To my mind there is only one way to describe those marches: they are hate marches.”