Marchers climbed the memorial to 2,937 Battle of Britain airmen. Broken wreaths lay below

Poppy wreaths lay broken at the foot of a bronze memorial on Saturday evening. Above them, hours earlier, protesters had stood on the stone, waving flags.

The memorial was the Battle of Britain Monument on Victoria Embankment in London. It honours the pilots and crews who fought the German air force over England in 1940.

The protesters were part of a national march for Palestine. It was the biggest day of protest in London since the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks on Israel.

By night, the Metropolitan Police said 20 people had been arrested. Six of them were held on suspicion of criminal damage after climbing the memorial.

What happened at the Battle of Britain memorial?

The march gathered on the Embankment at midday on Saturday 10 October. The Battle of Britain Monument stands right beside that route.

During the afternoon, some protesters climbed onto it. The Met posted that it had arrested "a number of protesters on suspicion of criminal damage after they climbed on to the Battle of Britain memorial." Police later put the number at six.

The Telegraph reported that commemorative poppy wreaths could be seen lying broken at the foot of the monument. Photos of the wreaths spread fast online on Saturday night.

Police have not said what exact damage was done, or who broke the wreaths. Being arrested on suspicion is not a charge, and nobody has been convicted of anything.

Photo: Marathon / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Who called it desecration, and what did they say?

The word "desecrate" came from critics, and they used it a lot.

The news account The Mercian posted that protesters had desecrated the memorial. Its post was seen more than 51,000 times.

Heidi Bachram, whose family members were killed and taken hostage on 7 October, the Telegraph reported, posted a photo of the broken wreaths. She called the scene "Utterly shameful." Her post passed 262,000 views by Sunday morning.

Journalist Charlie Peters shared a clip of people standing on the monument. He said police "were watching on for far too long."

The Campaign Against Antisemitism called it a "hate march". It wrote that six arrests were for "desecration of a war memorial". Police used the words criminal damage, not desecration.

The replies were raw. One woman wrote that her late father-in-law flew in the Battle of Britain and that his name is on that monument. She said she was angry beyond words.

How many people were arrested at the London Palestine march?

Twenty, the Met said late on Saturday. Here is the full list of reasons police and the Telegraph gave.

Before the march, the Met warned that anyone hiding their face to conceal who they were would be told to remove the covering. Refusing could lead to arrest.

Police also said they were aware of "social media footage of other possible offences". Officers were looking into it.

Why were people marching for Palestine in London?

The marchers say they came to mourn and to demand change. Many wore keffiyehs, the checked scarves linked with Palestine, and held signs reading "End the genocide" and "Free Palestine".

They held a two-minute silence for the people killed in Gaza. The Guardian reported that a bride and groom were among the crowd.

Their main demand is that Britain stops supplying weapons to Israel. Gaza's health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 74,000 Palestinians have died in three years. A ceasefire was declared a year ago, but Israeli airstrikes have carried on, the Guardian reported.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, shared a video from the march. "Louder, bigger and not going anywhere," he wrote, thanking the crowd.

Speakers at the rally in Whitehall included Labour MP John McDonnell and Your Party MP Zarah Sultana.

Photo: Philafrenzy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

How many people were at the march?

Organisers said 250,000 people were there by Saturday afternoon. Police did not give their own figure, and the number cannot be checked.

The march was run by the Palestine Coalition. It includes the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War, CND, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al Aqsa and the Palestinian Forum in Britain.

The Telegraph counted it as the 35th big march in London since the 7 October attack. That attack killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, and Hamas took more than 250 hostages. We covered how families of those victims are split over who should lead Israel.

We found no public statement from the organisers about the memorial by Sunday morning.

What happened when the march passed Scotland Yard?

A small pro-Israel group called Stop The Hate stood outside New Scotland Yard, the Met's headquarters. The Guardian counted about 30 people there.

They chanted "Terrorist supporters off our streets", the Telegraph reported. Marchers shouted back "In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians". Some also chanted abuse aimed at Zionists, the paper said.

Metal barriers and a row of police officers kept the two groups apart. Some marchers carried Iranian flags next to Palestinian ones.

Scenes like this are not only a London story. Days earlier, students clashed with police near the Bastille in Paris in a different row.

Is it illegal to climb on a war memorial in the UK?

Not on its own, as things stood in 2024. That year, protesters climbed the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner after a Gaza protest. The Met said then that no law clearly made climbing a memorial a crime.

Downing Street called that climb an affront to the armed forces. The government then proposed a new offence, with up to three months in jail and a £1,000 fine.

On Saturday, police used a different law. Criminal damage covers harm to property, like the broken wreaths. We found no word yet from the government on Saturday's scenes.

The timing added heat. Last month, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Labour's conference, "we hear you, you were right." He appeared to mean the marchers. Angry replies on Saturday threw that line back at him.

Photo: Marathon / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Who is named on the Battle of Britain Monument?

Every one of them is named. The monument lists 2,937 airmen who were given the Battle of Britain clasp, the medal bar for those who flew in the battle.

They came from 15 countries. Most were British, but 145 were Polish, 127 came from New Zealand and 112 from Canada, according to the Imperial War Museum's memorial record.

Winston Churchill called them "the Few".

The monument is new compared to the war. It was unveiled on 18 September 2005, after a charity, the Battle of Britain Historical Society, raised the money from the public. Sculptor Paul Day made its bronze scenes of the battle in the air and on the ground.

Those poppy wreaths were laid to thank them. On Saturday, people marching for the dead of one war climbed on top of the names of another war's young men. Six of them now wait to hear if they will be charged.