Sunday, July 06, 2025
The threat to the right to protest
Both will willingly use the mechanisms available to the state to suppress views and actions they disapprove of when, in many instances, there are already routes that can be taken to prevent such protests going too far.
The treatment of Palestine Action is a good example of this. On Wednesday, the House of Commons was asked to vote on whether to proscribe three organisations as terrorist groups under the Terrorism Act: two neo-Nazi groups—the Russian Imperial Movement and the Maniacs Murder Cult—and Palestine Action.
By linking these three groups together, the government put MPs into an impossible position. There is no doubt that the two white supremacist organisations listed clearly meet the threshold for proscription. But, as one Liberal Democrat MP explained, the vote was all-or-nothing. Parliament wasn’t allowed to assess each group on its own merits.
Dr AL Pinkerton, the Liberal Democrat MP for Surrey Heath, explained the dilemma he faced on Facebook:.
Let me be absolutely clear: I condemn in the strongest terms the reckless and illegal actions of those who broke into RAF Brize Norton and targeted military aircraft. Those responsible should be prosecuted using the full force of existing criminal law.
But that wasn’t the question before MPs. Tonight’s vote wasn’t about whether those actions were illegal (they were), or whether the individuals responsible should face criminal charges (they should). It was about whether supporting Palestine Action—regardless of whether you’ve broken the law—should carry a sentence of up to 14 years in prison under terrorism legislation.
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I do not believe the Government has yet made a clear or proportionate case for using terrorism powers in this instance. Proscribing a group for damage to property alone—however serious—is unprecedented. Terrorism legislation is meant to address imminent threats to life, not provocative protest, however distasteful.
If the Government has intelligence it cannot share publicly, it needs to explain how that evidence will hold up in court. Because if the proscription of Palestine Action collapses under legal challenge, we’ll have achieved nothing except making martyrs of extremists and weakening the long-term credibility of our counter-terror laws. That’s why I walked through both the “Aye” and “No” lobbies to register an abstention.
I support action against genuine threats—but we need prosecutions that stick, not gestures that unravel.
By my count, six Liberal Democrat MPs, including Dr Pinkerton abstained in this way, others stayed away altogether.
Thursday's Guardian contained a number of letters on this subject, including one by former Greenham Common activist, Dr Lynne Jones. It is worth quoting it in full:
In 1983, along with thousands of other women, I cut down sections of the fence around RAF Greenham Common, which was to house nuclear weapons in the form of cruise missiles (Greenham Common women urge new generation to ‘rise up’ against nuclear threat, 27 July).
Arrested and fined £50 for criminal damage, I was jailed for a couple of weeks for refusing to pay the fine. After the missiles arrived in 1984, I joined Cruisewatch actions, which, by obstructing the convoys on the road and throwing paintballs at them, prevented any missile deployment exercises taking place in secret. Again the charges were not severe. Arrested on Salisbury Plain on one occasion, my friends and I were released without charge. Women who did more than £10,000 worth of damage by painting the Blackbird spy plane in 1983 also had their charges dropped.
This week, if the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has her way, those committing similar kinds of criminal damage could face 14 years in jail for “terrorism” (Free speech target or terrorist gang? The inside story of Palestine Action – and the plan to ban it, 28 June). Yet nonviolent civil disobedience works. In 2004, Mikhail Gorbachev said he attended the 1986 Reykjavik summit because he was confident that “the Greenham Common women and the peace movements of Europe […] would not let America take advantage if we took this step forward”. That step led to a 1987 treaty removing tactical nuclear weapons, including cruise missiles, from Europe.
Keir Starmer plans once again to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, under US government control, on British soil and mass protests are already planned. As the Guardian pointed out in its excellent editorial on Palestine Action (23 June), Starmer might think that “redefining visible dissent as a national security threat is a way to contain public anger”, but it is unlikely to make it go away.
On the contrary, Margaret Thatcher’s government appeared to recognise that increased repression of “eccentric” women might actually increase popular support for a cause. Perhaps he could learn something.
It is worth recording that, on the criteria being deployed by the Labour Government, the suffragettes would have also been proscribed, possibly the antit-apartheid movement too and, even further back, the Chartists, as well as many other protest groups, all of whom are now acknowledged by some of the same Ministers who want to ban Palestine Action as organisatons that secured social reform by direct action.
The treatment of Palestine Action is a good example of this. On Wednesday, the House of Commons was asked to vote on whether to proscribe three organisations as terrorist groups under the Terrorism Act: two neo-Nazi groups—the Russian Imperial Movement and the Maniacs Murder Cult—and Palestine Action.
By linking these three groups together, the government put MPs into an impossible position. There is no doubt that the two white supremacist organisations listed clearly meet the threshold for proscription. But, as one Liberal Democrat MP explained, the vote was all-or-nothing. Parliament wasn’t allowed to assess each group on its own merits.
Dr AL Pinkerton, the Liberal Democrat MP for Surrey Heath, explained the dilemma he faced on Facebook:.
Let me be absolutely clear: I condemn in the strongest terms the reckless and illegal actions of those who broke into RAF Brize Norton and targeted military aircraft. Those responsible should be prosecuted using the full force of existing criminal law.
But that wasn’t the question before MPs. Tonight’s vote wasn’t about whether those actions were illegal (they were), or whether the individuals responsible should face criminal charges (they should). It was about whether supporting Palestine Action—regardless of whether you’ve broken the law—should carry a sentence of up to 14 years in prison under terrorism legislation.
'''
I do not believe the Government has yet made a clear or proportionate case for using terrorism powers in this instance. Proscribing a group for damage to property alone—however serious—is unprecedented. Terrorism legislation is meant to address imminent threats to life, not provocative protest, however distasteful.
If the Government has intelligence it cannot share publicly, it needs to explain how that evidence will hold up in court. Because if the proscription of Palestine Action collapses under legal challenge, we’ll have achieved nothing except making martyrs of extremists and weakening the long-term credibility of our counter-terror laws. That’s why I walked through both the “Aye” and “No” lobbies to register an abstention.
I support action against genuine threats—but we need prosecutions that stick, not gestures that unravel.
By my count, six Liberal Democrat MPs, including Dr Pinkerton abstained in this way, others stayed away altogether.
Thursday's Guardian contained a number of letters on this subject, including one by former Greenham Common activist, Dr Lynne Jones. It is worth quoting it in full:
In 1983, along with thousands of other women, I cut down sections of the fence around RAF Greenham Common, which was to house nuclear weapons in the form of cruise missiles (Greenham Common women urge new generation to ‘rise up’ against nuclear threat, 27 July).
Arrested and fined £50 for criminal damage, I was jailed for a couple of weeks for refusing to pay the fine. After the missiles arrived in 1984, I joined Cruisewatch actions, which, by obstructing the convoys on the road and throwing paintballs at them, prevented any missile deployment exercises taking place in secret. Again the charges were not severe. Arrested on Salisbury Plain on one occasion, my friends and I were released without charge. Women who did more than £10,000 worth of damage by painting the Blackbird spy plane in 1983 also had their charges dropped.
This week, if the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has her way, those committing similar kinds of criminal damage could face 14 years in jail for “terrorism” (Free speech target or terrorist gang? The inside story of Palestine Action – and the plan to ban it, 28 June). Yet nonviolent civil disobedience works. In 2004, Mikhail Gorbachev said he attended the 1986 Reykjavik summit because he was confident that “the Greenham Common women and the peace movements of Europe […] would not let America take advantage if we took this step forward”. That step led to a 1987 treaty removing tactical nuclear weapons, including cruise missiles, from Europe.
Keir Starmer plans once again to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, under US government control, on British soil and mass protests are already planned. As the Guardian pointed out in its excellent editorial on Palestine Action (23 June), Starmer might think that “redefining visible dissent as a national security threat is a way to contain public anger”, but it is unlikely to make it go away.
On the contrary, Margaret Thatcher’s government appeared to recognise that increased repression of “eccentric” women might actually increase popular support for a cause. Perhaps he could learn something.
It is worth recording that, on the criteria being deployed by the Labour Government, the suffragettes would have also been proscribed, possibly the antit-apartheid movement too and, even further back, the Chartists, as well as many other protest groups, all of whom are now acknowledged by some of the same Ministers who want to ban Palestine Action as organisatons that secured social reform by direct action.
They really have lost all perspective.
