MORE than 50 MPs and peers signed a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper today calling for an independent inquiry into the policing of a pro-Palestine protest on January 18.

The demonstration saw police arrest 77 people, a crackdown condemned by campaigners as an attack on freedom of assembly.

Organisers, including the protest’s chief steward Chris Nineham from Stop the War Coalition and Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal, were among those charged with public order offences.

The Metropolitan Police claimed demonstrators forcibly broke through police lines, despite footage on social media showing officers inviting a delegation carrying flowers to “filter through.”

MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn, who attended the protest, were interviewed under caution.

The day after the rally, Met Police chief Mark Rowley boasted to a meeting held by the pro-Israel Board of Deputies that officers had imposed “sharper and stronger conditions” on protest organisers.

In their letter, MPs said they were “deeply troubled” by obstacles put in by police before the demonstration, as well as the policing on the day.

The Met U-turned on a previously agreed route from the BBC, and organisers said there were a “series of complex restrictions” preventing people from assembling at various points in the agreed location of Whitehall at various times, resulting in arrests on “flimsy pretexts.”

The letter also flagged concerns over “the apparent denial of civil liberties and freedom to protest” and went on to call for the repeal of anti-protest laws brought in under the Tories.

“It was the former government which fomented protest and used legislation to repress it, this government must demonstrate it is delivering change,” it read.

One of the letter’s signatories, MP Andy McDonald, said: “There are serious questions for the Metropolitan Police to answer over their policing of the most recent national protest for Gaza which proves public order legislation is preventing legitimate protest.

“The police are yet to explain why they have charged organisers and questioned MPs over public order breaches, when their account of events conflicts with widely available video footage.

“There is a strong case for the Home Secretary to establish an independent investigation into the police’s decisions on Saturday January 18, but also a wider review of public order legislation which Labour in opposition said would erode historic freedoms of peaceful protest.”