Palestine Action protests

[BettyBooper]

I do realise that this is the FWR board, but there are some undercurrents of similarity, which is my interest.

Palestine Action has be proscribed as a terrorist organisation. This protest (to my understanding) was about that decision, not about the issue in Palestine itself.

I'm concerned that what was about Palestine is now in sizable number (as reported), elderly people protesting in support of a proscribed terrorist organisation.

You can protest about Palestine without supporting this organisation. So what's happening here?

I think my concern is that bad actors are using well meaning people to push an ideology. Which is the similarity with gender ideology and hence me posting here.

Again, my concern is that the protest appears to be in support of a group rather than the cause.

That's criminal damage. We have laws against criminal damage. The following things are criminal damage:

Someone painting a messy red cross on a roundabout
Someone putting red paint on a plane
Someone throwing orange powder on Stonehenge
Someone smashing a restaurant window because (allegedly) the owner hosted JKRowling

All done for political purposes. How you feel about each might depend on how you feel about political causes. You might support some even though they are illegal in principle. You could also argue some are worse than others because of cost (planes cost more to fix than roundabouts) or because of targeting (personally I think smashing the windows of someone's private business is worse because it's intimidating private individuals. Likewise people painting red crosses on people's houses/above takeaways.)

But none of them are terrorism.

If you start to change the definition for groups you don't like, what happens when a TRA argues that because someone scrawled "trans women are men" on a building, now anyone using that phrase is a terrorist? Or a pro-life government not only recriminalises abortion but decides that, since abortion is murder, denying the person good of unborn children is terrorist speech.

For what it's worth i dont like the rash of flag painting etc in roundabouts. I think the videos of people laughing while painting them above takeaways/shops are especially vile and no way is it just about "showing pride in the country". However, I would be outraged if "raise the colours" or whatever they call themselves were deemed a terrorist organisation. And it would be completely counterproductive because then you would have lots of people supporting them to prove a point. Likewise some of the more violent TRAs who have been allowed to get away with quite serious harrasment. We already have laws to deal with people like that without designating them terrorists

Yes,
I actually think if say Russia was actually invading the UK, then someone sabotaging a plane would meet a much harsher price (but even then I think that is different to terrorism -aiding an enemy). I agree sabotaging a plane isn't a free speech issue. However, by designating PA a terrorist organisation the government created a free speech issue out of thin air, since it then became an arrestable offence to support Palestine Action or even just hold a sign saying "Palestine Action". Which is only words. So of course people are going to do it - it's amazing the government couldn't have seen this would happen.

It's a lot of well-off pensioners with nothing better to do. The same lot job Just Stop Oil etc, even though they give on lots of foreign holidays etc.

Most of them couldn't even point to Palestine on a map.

Arrests at pro-Palestine Action protest rise to 890 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rvly00440o

Including a significant number of arrests after the protests turned violent.

It is. Freedom of speech underpins all of our other freedoms.

The government have handled this badly.

Indeed, there is a crossover....as far as I'm concerned, the trans cause is rooted in misogyny and the pro Palestine stuff is rooted in anti Semitism...the usual shit just repackaged in an attempt to appear moral.

Shame on those who have fallen for it

Violence, intimidation and destruction is not freedom of speech.

Protest the war in Gaza if you want. There is absolutely no need to support dodgy organisations like PA.

No, but protesting the classifying of PA as a terrorist group IS.

If people can't see the difference between supporting PA and supporting people's rights to criticise the government's classification of PA as a 'terrorist group', then we are getting into very difficult territory.

(I know very little about PA, and I expect I would disagree with most of their policies/ideas.)

But we need to be able to discuss how the government makes these kinds of decisions. It is a difficult and contentious area, but shutting down all discussion of it and issues surrounding it is never a good idea.

Otherwise we risk the government deciding willy nilly to proscribe certain groups and label them terrorist, and we are not even able to ask questions, disagree, or argue that decision.

Yep.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean supporting just the speech you agree with.

It's an unpleasant fight to have, or thing to defend because really often you are forced to defend stuff you find stupid, horrible, offensive or wrong.

But the principle is so important that we have to keep doing so.

The very instant we start to think that speech we disagree with should be oppressed on the basis we don't like it, we are undermining our own position and our own freedoms.

I suppose in some ways it's got a similar discomforting factor as safeguarding, because that also goes against some deeply ingrained behaviour.

In safeguarding, we assume the worst of everyone, and keep doing so. This isn't easy for humans to do. We naturally want to give people the benefit of the doubt, and trust certain people. It's mentally taxing to keep suspecting people, running through worst case scenarios, etc. But it's essential to maintain the underlying principle, which is to guard against laxity in safeguarding/loopholes/sacred castes, etc.

When it comes to freedom of speech, I think we have to be doubly careful when looking at groups whose speech we disagree with, because the natural inclination is to say 'shut them up'.

And then of course there's the risk of over correcting.

All of this is complex and not easy, but it's all essential to a functioning democracy, and none of it ever ends. There is never a point you can become complacent about freedom of speech, or safeguarding, it's all a constant, ongoing, ever evolving process.

Underlying all of these issues are tribalism, and our tendencies to take sides - very human, and unavoidable, and probably a sensible evolved response to checking for safety and conserving mental resources etc.

But tribalism has a lot of risks, and we need to be constantly aware of them and correct when necessary.

I'm amazed at the strength of feeling concentrated on just one of the 100+ armed conflicts going on around the world, and the near-silence about the 99+ others.

What X factor has this armed conflict that all the others lack? Why do all the other starving, wounded, displaced and killed victims around the world not register when it comes to organising demonstrations?

Yes. I'm glad there is a hearing set for November for Palestine Action to challenge the ban.

I would guess a lot will depend on whether the current serious prosecutions to which Cooper referred are completed by then, and the reporting restrictions can be lifted.

If the court upholds the ban but still can't yet tell the rest of us why, that would be slightly reassuring that Parliament has called it right, but still frustrating.

I wonder what date the trials in question are likely to finish?

People noting the similarities with the tactics of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil might also want to note that it is the same people involved in both.

One of the co-founders of Palestine Action was also one of those eejits who glued themselves to a tube train for Extinction Rebellion and thus stopped people using public transport when actually that's more environmentally friendly.

The female vicar who has been arrested for supporting Palestine Action is currently awaiting trial for attacking a rare copy of Magna Carta with a hammer for Just Stop Oil.

Basically career agitators and vandals who flit from cause to cause. One wonders if climate change has actually been solved given they've abandoned it (much like Greta appears to) in favour of Gaza.

Because it's being carried about be Jewish people who live in Israel.

People are very quiet about the Chinese Uhghurs, the situation in Burma etc.

It is anti-Semitic, and many of those "protesters" have come locally to me to harass Jewish people who have no affiliation to Israel.

By the way, this was how Parliament voted on the ban of Palestine Action and two other groups:

https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/division/2078#ayes
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2025
Division 252: held on 2 July 2025 at 17:27
Ayes 385
Noes 26

No Conservatives or Reform voted against.

Re specific MPs it's quicker to list who voted against than for.

Members voting No
Green Party (4)
Berry, Siân
Chowns, Ellie
Denyer, Carla
Ramsay, Adrian

Independent (6)
Adam, Shockat
Begum, Apsana
Corbyn, Jeremy
Hussain, Mr Adnan
McDonnell, John
Sultana, Zarah

Labour (9)
Abbott, Ms Diane
Ali, Tahir
Burgon, Richard
Byrne, Ian
Hussain, Imran
Johnson, Kim
Lewis, Clive
Morris, Grahame
Whittome, Nadia

Liberal Democrat (6)
George, Andrew
Gordon, Tom
Munt, Tessa
Perteghella, Manuela
Pinkerton, Dr Al
Taylor, Luke

Social Democratic & Labour Party (1)
Eastwood, Colum

NB Should add that I'm glad about the legal challenge because I will be happier if the ban is tested in court.

I'm not rooting for a specific result – I genuinely don't know what it should be. I'm well aware I don't have anything like full information.

I'm also glad that it is being tested in court.

Which makes these protests even more stupid. "I'm not happy that Palestine Action has been proscribed" "ok, it's being properly looked into and may be overturned if unreasonable" "I'm going to get arrested anyway because why not".

I haven't seen silence around the other conflicts at all, there's lots of activism going on in the UK about conflicts in several regions - you could get involved easily if you want to look into it. I've seen fewer protests against our UK government about them given our government isn't arming anyone in Sudan for example or flying recon missions on behalf of anyone in the Congo or refusing to sanction Russia. Our government hasn't called protestors against any of those conflicts terrorists either or arresting elderly people some of whom are Holocaust survivors for simply holding a sign. This whataboutism that people mustn't care about any other conflict because they feel solidarity with Palestinians is tedious and if it's genuine confusion at why people in the UK would be protesting against this particular conflict so strongly simply reading the news would clear that up pretty quickly.

What a bizarre claim. Anyone with a primary school level education in geography, history, or RE knows where Palestine is.

Of course everyone with an active interest in the ongoing conflict can point to Palestine on a map.

But the protestors have already been warned that support of a banned organisation is itself illegal. The police must act. This is not a game.

Yet quite a few had no idea what the river is called when they chant "from the river to the sea". Many have very little knowledge or awareness of some of the most basic facts in the long history of this conflict.

So you assert, with zero evidence.