UK armed police threat to pro-Palestine protester branded 'dystopian'

Middle East Eye

a day ago

Campaigners have described footage of a pro-Palestine protester being threatened with arrest by two British police officers "dystopian", saying it highlights the fear and confusion felt in the UK following the proscription of Palestine Action.
On Monday evening, two armed officers from Kent Police, in the southeast of England, threatened 42-year-old Laura Murton with arrest under the Terrorism Act for holding a Palestinian flag and holding signs saying 'Free Gaza' and 'Israel is committing genocide'.
In footage filmed in Canterbury by Murton and published by The Guardian, the officers can be heard asking the peaceful protester if she supports Palestine Action, the direct action group banned by the British government earlier this month.
Murton says she does not, before one officer tells her that she might be breaking the law by expressing an 'opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation'.
'Mentioning freedom of Gaza, Israel, genocide, all of that all comes under proscribed groups, which are terror groups that have been dictated by the government,' one of the officers says, adding that the phrase 'Free Gaza' is 'supportive of Palestine Action'.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
The officers tell Murton they will arrest her if she does not give them her name and address, which she does, reluctantly.
Tim Crosland, a former British government lawyer and activist with campaign group Defend Our Juries, told Middle East Eye: 'This dystopian incident reveals the full totalitarian implications of the banning order against Palestine Action."
'Anyone in Britain publicly expressing opposition to the genocide of Palestinians is now at risk of arrest for terrorism offences,' he added.
'This dystopian incident reveals the full totalitarian implications of the banning order against Palestine Action'
- Tim Crosland, former government lawyer
Murton herself also described the experience as "authoritarian" and "dystopian", telling The Guardian that nothing she was displaying or saying "could be deemed as supportive of the proscribed group'.
Nimer Sultany, a reader in law at Soas university in London, described "this action by Kent Police as clear evidence of the detrimental effects of the misguided use of counterterrorism law to police political speech and deter social activism.
"It is an excessively overbroad interpretation of the proscription of one small group of activists and is thus an unreasonable and unlawful encroachment on the rights to protest, assembly and free speech," Sultany told MEE.
Police confusion
In an initial statement given to The Guardian, a spokesperson for Kent Police said: 'Under the Terrorism Act it is a criminal offence to carry or display items that may arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation such as Palestine Action.'
But contacted by MEE, the police force seemed to have changed its view of the incident, with a spokesperson saying: 'Following a complaint about the behaviour of an individual on a traffic roundabout in Canterbury on Monday 14 July 2025, officers attended to investigate. Having ascertained no offences had been committed, no further action was taken.'
In Ilford North, Leanne Mohamad and the British left set their sights on Labour Read More »
Asked by MEE to confirm that Kent Police officers are not treating shows of Palestinian solidarity - including banners, scarves and flags - as potentially criminal acts, the spokesperson did not reply.
MEE has also asked the Home Office to clarify the government's position but had received no official response by time of publication.
Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), told MEE: 'A climate is being created, seemingly endorsed by the leadership of Kent Police and across the political establishment, that if you've got a Palestine flag, if you're talking about a genocide or calling for a free Gaza, then you can be subjected to this kind of treatment.'
Jamal said the climate of repression around protest and Palestinian solidarity in Britain has 'never been this bad'.
He said he thought the government was responding to 'the size of the movement that's grown in response to this genocide and the recognition across the British establishment that they're out of sync with public opinion, that they are complicit in supporting Israel's genocide'.
'In the UK, it's also part of a broader crackdown on the right to protest that began under the Conservative governments and has now accelerated under Labour,' Jamal said.
Sultany said there was an "increasing sense of politicisation of the police force in Britain under the Labour government, as was clear from the Met's increasingly restrictive approach to the pro-Palestine protests in London".
The legal scholar added that it was ironic that even though hardline former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman "is not in office any more, the Kent Police is granting her wish of seeking to effectively outlaw and ban the Palestinian flag and the anti-genocide slogans from the public sphere'.
'It's designed to intimidate'
For more than 21 months, Israel has relentlessly bombed the besieged Gaza Strip, displacing the entire 2.3 million population multiple times, and killing more than 58,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
Since the beginning of the war, hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated against it on a regular basis across Britain.
Jamal said he thought the crackdown on protest - including the proscription of Palestine Action - "is designed to intimidate. It's designed to make people think they are doing something really toxic.
'The police say they will employ common sense, but this is often not our experience on the ground'
- Ben Jamal, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
'This narrative has at its heart a deep anti-Palestinian racism. To call for rights of Palestinian people is seen as being barbaric and worthy of suspicion,' Jamal said.
As one of the organisers of the national Palestine marches that have been taking place in cities across the UK, Jamal has had extensive dealings with police forces, particularly London's Metropolitan Police.
On 18 January, the Met banned a march in London on the pretext that worshippers at a nearby synagogue would feel harassed.
Jamal argued that the media environment around the marches - with protesters frequently accused of being antisemitic terrorist sympathisers, rather than ordinary people opposed to Israel's war on Gaza - and the police response to them were creating an environment in which some British Jews felt unsafe.
Jamal said that police chiefs in London had told him that their officers would deploy 'common sense' on the ground, but that despite this he had witnessed them trying to break up a multifaith carol service and arresting people for straying into supposed "no-go zones".
'The police say they will employ common sense, but this is often not our experience on the ground,' he said.