Our “liberal” democracy is cracking down on liberal democracy.
Today, nationwide protests for Palestine Action restart. Since the “peace deal” in Gaza was brokered, at least 242 Palestinians, including children, have been killed and 622 injured, according to the Hamas-run health authority.
Yet in July, Yvette Cooper, then Home Secretary, proscribed Palestine Action. The group had mobilised citizens to come out in huge numbers in support of the Palestinians killed, wounded, and denied medical help and food by Israel. Cooper outlawed the organisation under the 2000 Terrorism Act because a few members had allegedly damaged some jets at RAF Brize Norton.
At the time of the proscription, I was in touch with Sir Geoffrey Bindman, a righteous lawyer with a gift for insight and who died on 4 November at the age of 92. Bindman was always courteous and was sharp and uncompromising on matters that mattered. In August, he was a signatory of a public letter which declared the ban “an attack both on the entire pro-Palestine movement and on fundamental freedoms of expression, association, assembly and protest”.
The letter was right then and it’s right now. Our leaders are passing laws to “manage” public spaces. And to punish people for exercising their fundamental rights.
How can it be that climate activists and defenders of Palestine Action are a threat to our national security? And why is the Labour Party renewing the repressive tendencies of recent Tory governments?
Interestingly, former prime minister David Cameron, former home secretary Priti Patel, former prime minister Rishi Sunak and Cooper all waxed lyrical about the Suffragettes, many of whom broke the law, planted bombs, sometimes caused injuries and terrible damage. How does that praise square with the loathing they have of today’s dissidents?
The Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 limited the power of the courts to remedy unlawful government actions, and in the same year, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act seriously curtailed political protest. The police were given new powers to crack down on free speech, dissent and protest. That led to nationwide “Kill the Bill” protests. Amnesty International condemned its authoritarian reach.
The biggest enemies within, at the moment, are environmental activists and the growing pro-Palestinian movement. This should be intolerable to anyone who values democracy. But most people just want to live their lives and seem both unaware and unbothered by the tightening grip of the state.
One of my acquaintances was, as she told me, “…totally naïve. I believed the stories we tell ourselves about our oldest and best parliament and inalienable rights. Then they came for my innocent, beautiful son”. He was arrested at an “illegal” march in support of Palestine Action. After being tried, he was sent to prison. He had just started university. He had plans and dreams, all now shattered. The young man has no faith in anything or anyone, including himself, and is suffering from depression.
The author Adam Weymouth, shortlisted this year for the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, has been corresponding with other such jailed activists. He quoted some of them in an article last Sunday in the Observer: “Their letters are full of defiance, fear and anger. ‘It’s not a crime to want to pass on a better world,’ wrote Indigo Rumblelow, 31, from Just Stop Oil. Charlotte Head, 29, from Palestine Action wrote: ‘Losing my liberty has been like entering purgatory where you are drowning but never die.’”
James Brown, a former Paralympian who glued himself to a plane, received a 12 month sentence. In July 2024, five members of Just Stop Oil were given between four and five years for conspiring to disrupt traffic, according to Weymouth, thought to be the longest sentences yet for peaceful protests in the UK.
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Look back to 2003, when five Brits opposed to the Iraq war were charged with criminal damage for disabling bombers at RAF Fairford. Starmer, then a snappy human rights lawyer, argued in the appeal court that the accused were preventing a greater harm.
Lord Hoffmann’s judgement was clear: “Civil disobedience on conscientious grounds has a long and honourable history in this country… It is the mark of a civilised community that it can accommodate protests and demonstrations of this kind.”
We are no longer that civilised community. That means none of us is safe. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood once made ferocious speeches on Palestinian rights. Today she would be marched off to prison. Now, as Home Secretary, she’s pushing draconian, inhumane laws to persecute asylum seekers and refugees. There will be protests against her plans. Will she proscribe migrant help groups? Jail the demonstrators, stuff them into already overcrowded prisons? Who will be the next target?
I think back to an essay by Sir Geoffrey Bindman commemorating the Peterloo Massacre, a ruthless cavalry assault on exploited factory workers who had gathered in St Peter’s Fields in Manchester in 1819. It ended with these words: “Eternal vigilance remains the price of freedom.” Our people are not vigilant. Our freedoms are being stolen.
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