Since the so-called ‘ceasefire’ between Israel and Hamas was brokered last year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been determined to take back control of the streets.
As protests for Palestine subsided and direct action waned, Starmer moved swiftly to shore up his government’s ‘law and order’ credentials.
Following last October’s synagogue attack in Manchester, Labour once again smeared Palestine protesters, and handed the police powers to ban “repeat protests”.
Greater Manchester Police and the Met have since felt emboldened, arresting and charging activists for allegedly using the word ‘intifada’ – which simply means ‘uprising’ in Arabic.
A sense that public concern for Palestine had faded shaped Labour’s response (or lack thereof) to political prisoners on hunger strike over the winter. Shamefully, David Lammy stonewalled the families of the victims who sought accountability. Images of emaciated teenagers failed to prick the conscience of the Justice Secretary.
With the customary arrogance that comes from representing the rich and the powerful, the Labour government believed that the worst was over. But the acquittal of six activists of the ‘Filton 24’ earlier this month was a bad omen of things to come.
Last week’s bombshell High Court ruling that the proscription of Palestine Action is “disproportionate” and “unlawful” is yet another crushing blow for Labour.
It raises the sharp question: who, exactly, stands accused: those who acted to prevent a genocide, or those who clamped down on our democratic rights to facilitate it?
Starmer’s cabinet pushed through the bad optics of the police arresting vicars and priests for holding up signs. His government neglected those so-called ‘terrorists’ held in remand for daring to damage military equipment destined for a genocidal state.
For a moment, it appeared as if Starmer might avoid a retreat on yet another policy. But now the stage is set for the mother of all U-turns.
Class divide
No capitalist government could have won the war of public opinion on Palestine, because at its root it expressed opposite sides of an irreconcilable class divide.
On one side, there are the faithful representatives of British imperialism, who gladly take their orders from Washington to back Israel to the hilt.
On the other hand, there are ordinary people that have been revolted by the genocide carried out in their name. They loathe the serial killer posing as the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, which has been granted a free pass to murder and maim as it pleases.
And so it became the luckless job of the Home Secretary to try and contain the explosive anger felt towards the political establishment on the streets.
The Tory Party’s Suella Braverman was first up. After smearing the million-strong Palestine solidarity demonstrations as “hate marches” – barking orders at the police to use the “full force of the law”, and then accusing them of bias – she was removed from her post. Braverman’s public battle with law enforcement turned her into a political liability.
But Suella’s dismissal ended up being quick and painless. Bigger mistakes were yet to come.
Cooper’s gamble
Then came the turn of Labour’s Yvette Cooper. Her decision, whilst serving as Home Secretary, to proscribe Palestine Action was as reckless as it was ridiculous.
By legally equating peaceful activists with the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, she dramatically upped the ante in her political gamble. In the three months that followed, more people were charged with terrorism offences than during the entire ‘war on terror’ from 2001 onwards!
To head off any criticism, Cooper insisted that there was secret evidence of their crimes – kept under wraps from the prosecuted, the press, and parliament.
In this Kafkaesque scenario – entangled in a bureaucratic process trying to ascertain why they were now suddenly deemed ‘terrorists’ – activists were locked away, while the British government concealed the ‘evidence’ for their alleged crimes.
Undermining the ‘rule of law’; overloading the already-backlogged courts; destroying morale in the police; further discrediting the government in the eyes of millions: such were the consequences of Cooper’s gambit.
These attacks didn’t just tarnish the reputation of the Labour government, however. As seen with the outbursts of mass civil disobedience on the streets, Labour’s ‘law and order’ campaign called into question the authority of the law, and the ability for the state to implement them.
Pass the poisoned chalice
Next up was Shabana Mahmood, the invertebrate chameleon who not so long ago could be found protesting for a ‘Free Palestine’ on the streets of London.
But, with the taste of power still fresh on her lips, Mahmood doubled down on the proscription. She recently revealed her vision of Britain as a “panopticon” nation where the “eyes of the state can be on you at all times”.
In light of the High Court decision, however, the eyes of the state – or at least a section of it – are now staring back at her. Facing the fallout, she has naturally expressed her “disappointment” that a peaceful protest group might no longer be likened to ISIS.
Mahmood will now appeal the High Court’s ruling – dragging out this disaster for Labour. The police, meanwhile, find themselves in legal limbo. Palestine Action is still technically on the ‘terrorist list’. Yet the Metropolitan police will no longer arrest anyone showing support for said group:
“Officers will continue to identify offences where support for Palestine Action is being expressed, but they will focus on gathering evidence of those offences and the people involved to provide opportunities for enforcement at a later date, rather than making arrests at the time.”
In plain English: due to the unlawful actions of Labour Home Secretaries past and present, the police can no longer arrest protestors supportive of Palestine Action. Instead, to pass the time, they will continue to gather evidence that – if the government’s appeal succeeds – can be used against such people at a later date.
Questions loom large over what will happen to those currently being charged for taking part in Defend our Juries protests last year. The Labour government has created a mess with no end in sight.
The proscription of Palestine Action was a totem of how far Starmer’s gang was willing to go to prove themselves as the party of law and order. But it has backfired spectacularly. After staking so much political capital on this issue, they have proven once again that they can do no right.
Crisis of the regime
What has characterised the outlook of each Home Secretary is their short-sightedness. Labour’s proscription broadened the scope of the protests: making it a matter not just opposing the butchery of Palestinians abroad, but defending the democratic right to protest here at home.
It began to expose the hard and narrow limits of free speech under capitalism – hard-won rights that the ruling class will dispense of if they feel their interests are threatened.
There is no capitalist state in history that has relinquished its divine right to dispatch its street thugs to beat up peaceful protesters, and use the guise of ‘public order’ to intimidate and harass activists. This is the real violence embedded in the DNA of the bourgeois state.
But what is remarkable is that the courts and police have been blunt instruments in successive government’s attempts to crush the movement. We find a state not united behind common cause, but different wings at war with one another.
Though the High Court ruling is undoubtedly a victory for the Palestine movement, this is a win that could have been pushed through on the streets as far back as last summer.
Like the inspiring example set by the Italian general strike for Palestine, we have seen that when the working class bursts onto the scene as an independent force – with its own demands and methods – it strikes fear into the hearts of the imperialists.
More was achieved through this political strike than decades of campaigning to ‘raise awareness’ of Israel’s genocidal intent.
The Labour government’s attempt to project strength has exposed its weakness. Pride came before the fall for Starmer. It’s our task to tear down the whole rotten imperialist system that they represent.
