At least we can sleep easy in our beds now. Hundreds of law-breakers have been arrested in a massive Metropolitan Police operation, and we peace-loving Britons can worry no longer about the threat to our safety posed by large numbers of old people sitting cross-legged in our city streets, holding placards.
I don’t know what Jack Straw, the home secretary who was responsible for the Terrorism Act of 2000, thinks about the arrest of 522 people (many of them of pensionable age) in London last weekend for demonstrating support for Palestine Action – a proscribed terrorist organisation – but I can’t believe that he thinks this large-scale police action against peaceful protesters is what the act was designed for.
A little context. In the Brixton riots of 1981 – the most serious, prolonged civil disturbance of my lifetime – a grand total 82 people were arrested over three days of rioting which resulted in widespread damage to property and 279 police officers being injured. Some 378 arrests were made at football matches over the entirety of the 2024/25 season. And for the year ending 31 March 2025, only 232 people were arrested in the UK for terrorist-related activity in that whole year.
This was the biggest such exercise in the Met’s history. Of those arrested at the weekend, more than half were more than 60 years of age. For the vast majority, their “crime” was nothing more than silently holding up a hand-made sign that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. A former adviser to Prince Charles, an 81-year-old with Parkinson’s disease, and a blind man in a wheelchair were among those who had their collars felt. Meanwhile, a man holding up a cartoon from Private Eye was arrested in Leeds for the same “offence”.
It is nothing short of an outrage and I simply can’t understand why more of a fuss isn’t being made of this flagrant attack on freedom of speech and our right to peaceful protest. The Terrorism Act was designed to curb the activities of the IRA, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, not to stop the attendance at a rally of 71-year-old Jeremy Shippam from West Sussex, or Judit Murray, also 71, of Surrey, who will both appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in September charged with an offence under section 13 of the Terrorism Act (showing support for a proscribed organisation). They face a maximum of six months in jail or a £5,000 fine.
But should Palestine Action be banned in the first place? The organisation, established in 2020, accuses the British arms industry of being complicit in the military offensive in Gaza and aims to disrupt its activities through direct action, including breaking and entering, and vandalism.
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Their most high-profile act was to break into RAF Brize Norton and spray red paint into the engines of two Voyager aircraft, and damage them with crow bars. They have also sprayed red paint on the walls of the Ministry of Defence and on the headquarters of the BBC (a curious act considering many people accuse the BBC of a pro-Palestine stance). No one has been injured by their actions thus far.
These are illegal acts, all right, but there are laws already in place to deal with them. Whether they constitute terrorism is moot, at best. Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, gave a veiled caution that some of us don’t know “the full nature” of Palestine Action and that “it is not a non-violent organisation”. Court restrictions prevent her from revealing more details, she says. Even if we take her at her word, it’s difficult to establish a case that this is a group whose activities the Terrorism Act was meant to curb.
The bigger question is whether police resources should be directed in this manner, and our over-extended courts should be clogged with politically engaged 71-year-olds. I can understand why, in a febrile climate, those who carry messages which incite violence or racial hatred should be punished, but our extant hate laws cover that.
This is the thin end of a very dangerous wedge, one that puts the state and its agents in direct opposition with the people. And what’s the prize, anyway? Stopping peaceful protest? Curbing our freedom to disagree with others? Criminalising citizens who have strong beliefs? It’s madness. An over-reaction of scandalous proportions. And it must end.
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