Palestine Action has committed ‘violence' and ‘significant injury', No 10 says
Scotland Yard has said some 522 people were held over the weekend on suspicion of displaying an item in support of a proscribed group, out of the total 532 arrests during the policing operation at a march in central London.
Palestine Action said Downing Street's accusations were 'false and defamatory' and 'disproven by the Government's own intelligence assessment'.
The Government has said 'many people may not yet know the reality of this organisation' as the full details of the proscription process cannot be shared for national security reasons.
Asked on Monday whether ministers were reconsidering the decision to designate the group as a terrorist organisation following mass arrests on Saturday, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'No.
'Palestine Action was proscribed based on strong security advice following serious attacks the group has committed involving violence, significant injury and extensive criminal damage.'
Downing Street said the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre – an independent authority based within MI5 – had found the organisation had carried out three separate acts of terrorism.
'We've said that many people may not yet know the reality of this organisation, but the assessments are very clear: this is a violent organisation that has committed violence, significant injury and extensive criminal damage,' Sir Keir Starmer's spokesman said.
Speaking to broadcasters earlier on Monday, justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said supporters of the group would face 'the full force of the law'.
'We have credible reports of them targeting Jewish-owned businesses here in the United Kingdom, and there are other reasons, which we can't disclose because of national security,' she told BBC Breakfast.
Meanwhile, officers from the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command will be working over the coming weeks to put together case files in relation to arrests made at a protest in London in Saturday, the force has said.
The demonstration was held in Parliament Square on Saturday, organised by Defend Our Juries, with the Metropolitan Police warning it would detain anyone expressing support for Palestine Action.
The majority of those arrested, 348, were aged 50 or over, according to a breakdown published by the Met on Sunday.
Detained protesters were taken to prisoner processing points in the Westminster area.
Those whose details could be confirmed were released on bail to appear at a police station at a future date.
There were a further 10 arrests, six for assaults on officers, two for breaching Public Order Act conditions, one arrest for obstructing a constable in the execution of their duty, and one for a racially aggravated public order offence, the force said.
Palestine Action's co-founder Huda Ammori said: 'Yvette Cooper and No 10's claim that Palestine Action is a violent organisation is false and defamatory, and even disproven by the Government's own intelligence assessment of Palestine Action's activities and the Home Office spokesperson's statement outside court just a few weeks ago.'
Ms Ammori said the group does not advocate for violence against persons, and the majority of its activities would not be classified as terrorism.
'Spraying red paint on war planes is not terrorism. Disrupting Israel's largest weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems by trespassing on their sites in Britain is not terrorism,' she said.
'It is the Israeli Defence Force and all those who arm and enable their war crimes who are the terrorists.'
She claimed the reason the Government has banned the group is 'because they capitulated to the Israeli embassy, arms manufacturers and pro-Israeli groups who lobbied them to ban us'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Anger, fear and a total rejection of politics: the Palestine Action protest was a snapshot of Britain today
In the third month of this tense, parched summer, the British state is under severe strain. Stripped of resources by 14 years of reckless rightwing government, contorting itself to maintain relations with ever more extreme regimes abroad, expanding its security powers at home through ever more tortured logic, regarded by ever more voters with contempt, a once broadly respected institution is increasingly struggling to maintain its authority. You could see the strain on the faces of some of the police officers, reddening with exertion in the sun, as they arrested 521 people in Parliament Square on Saturday for displaying pieces of paper or cardboard with a seven-word message supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action. It was one of the biggest mass arrests in London's history. The many protesters who refused to be led away had to be lifted off the ground, one by one, without the exercise looking too coercive in front of the cameras. Then their floppy, uncooperative forms had to be carried by clusters of officers through the hostile crowd – to chants of 'genocide police!', 'shame on you!' and 'fascist scum!' – to a ring of police vans at the square's perimeter, which were then sometimes obstructed by further protesters, before they eventually drove away. So many officers were needed that some had come from Wales. When Tony Blair's Labour government introduced Welsh devolution 26 years ago, in times of more harmony and less scarcity, cooperation between the nations was probably not envisaged in this form. On Saturday, so that the capital's police custody system was not overwhelmed, those arrested were taken to 'makeshift outdoor processing centres', the Observer reported – as if during a general breakdown of law and order. Some of those released on bail then reportedly went back to the protest. 'Given the numbers of people arrested,' said the Metropolitan police, 'it would have been entirely unrealistic for officers to recognise individuals who returned to [the square].' 'Entirely unrealistic' is not a reassuring phrase for those who believe that the government's approach to Palestine Action is practical and based on sound law. If charged, those arrested will enter the overburdened criminal justice system and then, if found guilty, Britain's bursting jails. It's likely that further supporters of Palestine Action will follow. The organiser of Saturday's protest, Defend Our Juries, has promised a sustained campaign of 'mass, public defiance', to make the proscription of Palestine Action 'unworkable'. This amendment to the 2000 Terrorism Act – a less benign legacy of Blair than devolution – states that anyone who 'wears, carries or displays an article' publicly, 'in such a way… as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of' Palestine Action could be jailed for up to six months; and anyone who 'invites support for' the organisation could be jailed for up to 14 years. Authoritarianism and austerity have risen together in Britain, as the relatively generous public spending of the Blair years has receded and new waves of radical activism have formed over the climate crisis and the destruction of Palestine. Yet the possibility that austerity will make authoritarianism unaffordable, with too much of the government's funds swallowed up by the security state, does not seem prominent in Labour's thinking. The fact that Keir Starmer is a former director of public prosecutions and that the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has for many years been one of parliament's leading authorities on national security, has given them a lot of faith in law-and-order solutions to political problems. The Parliament Square protesters took a different view. They had been advised by Defend Our Juries not to give quotes to journalists, to avoid distracting from the protest's focus on the Palestine Action proscription and the genocide in Gaza. Yet the dozen protesters I spoke to informally all talked about Britain's police and politicians without the slightest deference, as part of a system that was failing, practically and ethically, to address our era's escalating crises. As the arrests went on and on, through the hot afternoon and into the evening, many of the protesters barely moved, but kept facing the same way, sitting on the ground with their placards carefully displayed and their backs to the Houses of Parliament. Partly, this was to provide a globally resonant image, but it was also to dramatise their rejection of the will of the Commons, where only 26 MPs voted against Palestine Action's proscription last month. Parliament likes to see itself as a historic defender of freedom and liberty, yet when panics about subversive groups are under way, its liberalism often evaporates. While the Commons narrows its views in times of crisis, the electorate sometimes does the opposite. Half of those arrested in the square were aged 60 or older – usually the most politically conservative demographic. Many had had middle-class careers in public service. Chatting among themselves on the grass in the quieter moments between police surges, they could almost have been taking a break between events at a book festival. One woman sat on a camping stool, wearing a panama hat. When I introduced myself, she said: 'I don't like the Guardian, I read the Telegraph.' The last time Labour was in office, opposition to its more draconian and militaristic policies also emerged across the political spectrum. The more rightwing members of this opposition can be questioned: are they as outraged when Tory governments support wars or suspend civil liberties? My sense is not. But either way, broad opposition erodes a government's legitimacy. At the 2005 election, after the Terrorism Act and the Iraq war, Blair still won, yet with almost a third fewer votes than when he came to power. With Labour more unpopular now, Starmer can less afford to alienate anti-war voters – much as his most illiberal subordinates might want to. Yet any electoral consequences from the scenes in Parliament Square, and from likely sequels, are hardly the only things at stake in the Palestine Action controversy. At mid-afternoon on Saturday, with the police cordon tightening around us, I got talking to two elderly protesters who had watched people being arrested beside them. 'I'm in two minds about carrying on with this,' one of them said, opening and closing her piece of cardboard with its illegal message. Defiant earlier, she now seemed frightened. The legally safe space for protest in Britain is shrinking again. Meanwhile in Gaza, there's no safe space for anything at all. Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
PM on brink of unwanted small boats milestone - and far faster than his Tory predecessors
The number of people who have illegally crossed the Channel on small boats under the Labour government is on the brink of passing 50,000. Home Office figures show that up to and including Sunday, a total of 49,797 people had arrived since 5 July 2024. Sky News witnessed more migrants being brought ashore at Dover on Monday on a day of exceptional weather, and the Conservatives claim the 50,000 threshold has been hit. Official statistics could confirm the milestone later today. It would mean Sir Keir Starmer - who won power promising to "smash the gangs" behind the crossings - has seen 50,000 crossings on his watch in 401 days. Sky News chief political correspondent Jon Craig said that's "much faster" than under Rishi Sunak, who was in office for 603 days when he hit the unwanted tally. It took some 1,066 days under Boris Johnson, though it's worth remembering his tenure covered the pandemic. Nearly 20,000 migrants crossed the Channel to the UK in the first six months of this year, a rise of almost 50% on the number crossing in 2024 and a new record for the first half of a year. The government is hoping a new "one in one out deal" with France that came into force last week will deter crossings, with some migrants now facing the prospect of being detained and returned. 1:08 Badenoch: People don't feel safe The numbers have further fuelled public anger over the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, with protests taking place across the country this summer. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has suggested "camps" be set up instead, saying women and children in her Essex constituency and elsewhere "don't feel safe". Her party are also proposing automatic deportation for any illegal migrants, and have regularly criticised the government for scrapping the Rwanda scheme. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said "Labour tore up our deterrents before they were even in place". 2:41 A Number 10 spokesperson said crossings "reached all-time highs" under the previous Tory government. "The gangs had six years to set routes," they added, and Labour are determined to tackle the crisis by "hunting down gangs" and "fixing the foundations of a broken asylum system".
South Wales Guardian
2 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
Suranne Jones watched Starmer and Sunak ‘battle' in preparation for new role
In an interview with Radio Times, Jones discussed her upcoming Netflix drama Hostage in which she plays a fictional British prime minister whose husband is kidnapped. The series, which will be released on the streaming platform on August 21, sees Julie Delpy play a fictional visiting French president who is blackmailed, leaving the two leaders to face unimaginable choices. On her preparation for the role, Jones said: 'We spoke to people in positions of power. 'We went to the House of Commons, and we watched Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer battle against each other. 'We met with the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle. We looked at Nicola Sturgeon. And Jacinda Ardern (the former prime minister of New Zealand). 'We looked at Theresa May. And Lucy Powell (MP for Manchester Central). 'We had fun developing it. It made me think about what being a woman of power means, and what it costs.' She added: 'The whole thing is about you, your family unit, how women split themselves between work and home, what the cost is, how you want to be portrayed, how the world perceives you as a woman, and what you have to battle with, before you start your day. 'All of that is going on before you put your heels on. 'And you might not want to put your heels on. And your power suit. But actually, you have to in order to make a mark in the room.' Jones rose to fame playing Karen McDonald on ITV soap Coronation Street, and the actress is due to star in the third series of BBC police drama Vigil, which is being filmed this year with a release date yet to be announced. The full interview can be read in the latest edition of Radio Times magazine.
