Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Is the right to protest under attack?
He says that the decision of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to classify and proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation has crossed a threshold that he considers uncrossable:
A country like Iceland recognises the right of citizens to engage in civil disobedience as fundamental to freedom. Of course there will be instances where the law is broken in pursuit of a cause. But defendants have been able to argue that taking action that may involve breaking the law is excusable if the intention of the action was to prevent a bigger crime being committed.
Britain was essentially in this same category until Ms Cooper issued her edict.
For her to have done so defies commonsense. No one seriously believes that Palestine Action is comparable as an organisation to Isis or Al Qaeda – groups that behave as terrorists do, murdering anyone in pursuit of an ideology that is at the opposite end of the spectrum from democracy.
However much one may disapprove of Palestine Action’s modus operandi, it is clearly very different in terms of its motivation and implementation.
No one has been killed as a result of the group’s activities, which have been directed at thwarting violent actions undertaken by a foreign nation – Israel – or support given by the British military to that nation.
It’s significant that there has been no question of proscribing the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – the group responsible for organising countless protests against Israel’s murderous attacks on Palestinians.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t care how many people in Britain participate in demonstrations against his war. With the practical and moral support of the US, the UK and other European nations, such protests can be safely ignored.
But damaging weapon systems produced by Israelis on British soil is another matter entirely, and something that Netanyahu won’t tolerate. Breaking into premises where deadly drones are manufactured, as Palestine Action has done, is interfering with Israel’s war aims and has to be stopped.
Classifying the group as a terrorist organisation, with jail sentences of up to 14 years for anyone who belongs to the group or expresses support for its aims, is an effective way to neutralise opposition that has proved itself capable of causing tangible damage.
What should worry us is how Israel has been able to exert such pressure on the UK Government that it has extended the definition of “terrorism” into what should be considered the realms of absurdity. But the forces of law and order aren’t treating it as absurd, and individuals who don’t have the slightest inclination to violence are now being arrested by police officers acting in accordance with political instructions – something that should never happen but, as those of us old enough to remember the miners’ strike realise, sometimes does.
On this occasion, however, we’re into new territory, with repressive measures being introduced at the behest of a foreign country – and one that can legitimately be argued to have engaged in terrorist activity itself.
A certain amount has come out already about the way British forces have been deployed to help Israel’s vicious attacks on the people of Gaza, and I have no doubt that much more will emerge as time passes.
Equally I am sure that future revelations will not be to Britain’s credit.
Martin makes a wider point about bad faith in politics and the abuse of social media to distort facts for political ends, but the argument about proscription of Palestine Action is the most potent part of his piece.
The UK Labour government have placed the country on a very slippery slope, and are directly threatening the freedom to protest as they do so.
