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Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Times
At least 200 arrests at Palestine Action protest outside parliament
Police have arrested at least 200 protesters gathered in central London to support Palestine Action, the activist group banned as a terrorist organisation. More than 500 people flooded Parliament Square in Westminster as Big Ben struck 1pm to hold up handwritten placards stating: 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.' Rows of officers filed into the square to handcuff protesters within a minute of the silent vigil commencing. The first arrests were near the statues of Millicent Fawcett, the feminist campaigner, and Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian independence leader. Officers were met with chants of 'Shame on you' and 'genocide police' as they moved in. Many elderly activists quietly sat in the centre of the square to await their fate while a group of bystanders started singing the hymn 'We shall overcome'. Defend Our Juries, which organised Saturday's protest, claimed that as many as 700 people had turned out to risk arrest. However, this figure could not be corroborated by police. Among the protesters was La Pethick, 89, a retired psychotherapist from near Hastings, Sussex. She said she was 'apprehensive' about being detained but had the 'full support' of her five grandchildren. 'We are having our right to peaceful protest being taken away,' Pethick said. 'We have a common fear that there is a genocide going on [in Gaza] against international law.' Claudia Cotton, 89, a retired social worker who lives in London, is a Jewish refugee from Stuttgart who left Germany with her parents in 1939. Around her shoulders was a red keffiyeh scarf and she held a handwritten sign that read: 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.' She said: 'I am prepared to be arrested. In fact, I think it's a good thing because it shows how ordinary people are willing to go to prison to oppose when governments are doing evil things.' Cotton said it was her first time being arrested. 'Words fail me how the British government can do nothing when thousands of civilians are being killed.' The arrest of one protester required 12 officers as he was led away to a police van. Other demonstrators had to be lifted by four officers as they turned 'floppy' when they were confronted. Moazzam Begg, 57, the former Guantanamo Bay inmate, was arrested just before 2.30pm, holding a pro-Palestine Action placard in one hand and a yellow rose in another. He was surrounded by supporters of Cage, the controversial advocacy group that previously described Mohammed Emwazi, the Isis executioner known as Jihadi John, as 'a beautiful young man'. Just before he was detained, Begg said: 'This isn't about Palestine Action. This isn't about being arrested. It's about the children of Gaza, it's about the men of Gaza, it's about the women of Gaza and it's about a genocidal state.' He described being held as 'an honour'. Unlike previous protests since the ban of Palestine Action, which were dominated by middle-class white activists, Saturday's demonstration featured a small contingent of Muslim participants. One group of Muslim women who were not holding incriminating placards walked around the square thanking those who were risking arrest. By 2.30pm officers had formed a cordon around 200-300 activists sitting in the centre of Parliament Square as a police helicopter circled overhead. The restriction, under Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act, allows everyone inside to be detained. The police entered the cordon to arrest activists one by one. Journalists were blocked from entering. The Metropolitan Police has just over 500 cells at its disposal, many of which will already be occupied. However, officers can take the details of a suspect at the scene of a crime and order them to attend a police station in a practice known as 'street bail'. Bianca Jagger, the human rights campaigner and former wife of Sir Mick Jagger, attended the event but held a different placard which is unlikely to lead to her being detained. 'Matter of conscience' Some of those taking part in the demonstration have been held at previous protests against the Home Office ban, which came into effect on July 5. They include Dr Alice Clack, 49, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, who remains on bail after being arrested at a smaller protest in Parliament Square on July 19. Clack, the granddaughter of a Jewish refugee who came to Britain on the Kindertransport, said she was attending Saturday's protest as a 'matter of conscience'. She added: 'In Gaza, we are witnessing not just the indiscriminate use of force against civilians, but also the targeting of hospitals and clinics, and the killing and intimidation of medical staff.' It was, she said, a 'gross abuse of state power' for the government to label Palestine Action a terrorist organisation. The direct action group has waged a campaign of attacks for many months on defence companies in Britain that it accuses of being complicit in Israel's military operations in Gaza. It was proscribed by Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and caused £7 million damage by spraying red paint into the engines of two Voyager aircraft. • A history of Palestine Action: from birth to ban The Home Office insisted on Saturday morning that it was not seeking to criminalise dissent over Gaza. A spokeswoman said: 'The home secretary has been clear that the proscription of Palestine Action is not about Palestine, nor does it affect the freedom to protest on Palestinian rights. It only applies to the specific and narrow organisation whose activities do not reflect or represent the thousands of people across the country who continue to exercise their fundamental rights to protest on different issues. 'Freedom to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy and we protect it fiercely.' The mass protest in Parliament Square against the ban coincides with a march to Downing Street by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. That event, which several thousand people were expected to attend, departed from Russell Square at noon and ended with a rally in Whitehall. The simultaneous demonstrations will stretch the Met. As well as deploying hundreds of its officers, it has called in at least 110 police from other forces under 'mutual aid' rules. They include officers from constabularies in South Wales, Greater Manchester, Humberside, Cheshire and Durham. Welsh police at the demonstration TOBY SHEPHEARD FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES Groups behind the protest Defend Our Juries, a civil liberties campaign group, has previously backed climate change activists at court trials. One of its key figures is Tim Crosland, an Oxford-educated barrister who was disbarred in 2023 for disclosing an embargoed Supreme Court ruling on a third runway at Heathrow before it was officially meant to be published. Crosland, 55, previously worked as a lawyer at the National Crime Agency, described as Britain's equivalent of the FBI. The protest has also been promoted by the advocacy group Cage. Begg, one of its senior directors, has said the ban on Palestine Action 'must be opposed', adding: 'The government is criminalising the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century as it is livestreamed from Gaza.' More than 200 people, including an 83-year-old retired priest from Bristol, have been arrested at smaller demonstrations. Most of them have been detained under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This relates to 'wearing clothing or carrying or displaying articles in public in such a way as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation'. On Thursday, the first of these suspects, including two pensioners, both 71, were formally charged. The Met said case files on 26 other individuals arrested at the same protest in Westminster on July 5 would be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service soon. Ade Adelekan, a deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, said: 'What sets this protest apart from others is participants are coming out not just to express a view, but with the aim of being arrested in very large numbers to place a strain on the police and the wider criminal justice system.' The highest number of arrests previously made by the Met at the same protest is thought to be 339 at the poll tax riots in 1990. The force detained 306 people in one day during Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in London in October 2019. Saturday's mass protest had the blessing of Huda Ammori, 31, a co-founder of Palestine Action. On July 30, a High Court judge granted her leave to bring a full judicial review of the Home Office ban. The case will be heard in November. The Home Office said: 'The decision to proscribe was based on strong security advice and the unanimous recommendation by the expert cross-government proscription review group. This followed serious attacks the group has committed, involving violence, significant injuries and extensive criminal damage. It also followed an assessment from the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre that Palestine Action prepares for terrorism, as well as worrying information referencing plans and ideas for further attacks, the details of which cannot yet be publicly reported due to ongoing legal proceedings.'
New Statesman
30-07-2025
- Politics
- New Statesman
Palestine Action and the distortion of terrorism
Photo by Henry Nicholls / AFP via Getty Images On a Wednesday morning in early July, dozens of female MPs gathered in parliament's Westminster Hall. It was a relatively cool day, a relief in the middle of a London heatwave, and the MPs were upbeat as they convened to celebrate the 97th anniversary of women getting the vote in Britain. Seamstresses had sewn 264 sashes, one for each sitting female member of parliament, made of white twill with purple and green ribbons stitched along the sides, the colours a tribute to the suffragettes. Although there is a statue of the law-abiding suffragist Millicent Fawcett outside parliament, law-breaking suffragettes were just as instrumental to the campaign. They smashed windows, bombed letterboxes and threw acid on to golf courses for women's right to vote. In 1914, one even marched into the National Gallery and slashed a Velázquez painting. MPs lined up with their sashes for a photo to commemorate the moment. The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, a long-time admirer of the suffragettes, stood beaming, front and centre. Just hours later, MPs voted on a proscription order put forward by Cooper that would ban the direct-action protest group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. Founded in 2020 in response to intensifying Israeli violence in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestine Action was a network of campaigners that embraced direct action in order to obstruct the British infrastructure that supplies Israel with weapons. For the past five years a favourite target has been Elbit Systems, Israel's largest privately owned weapons company, which has British subsidiaries with a number of factories in the UK. Over the years, campaigners have occupied factories that manufacture drones, spray-painted head offices and chained themselves to gates. The group revelled in disruption and damage to property. Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori told the New Left Review earlier this year, 'If you stop a weapons factory from running, even for a day, you've already achieved something significant.' The group didn't encourage violence or attacks on people, though one campaigner has been charged with grievous bodily harm with intent for allegedly striking a police officer with a sledgehammer during a blockade of a warehouse linked to Elbit in Bristol in August 2024. (The campaigner denies the charges and the case is ongoing.) The network ramped up after 7 October 2023 and the launch of the war on Gaza. Palestine Action campaigners sprayed 'Free Gaza' in red across the Piccadilly head office of a weapons company. They dug up and painted 'Gaza is not 4 sale' on Donald Trump's Ayrshire golf course in Scotland. Then, on 20 June, campaigners are alleged to have broken into Brize Norton, the largest air force base in the UK, approached two Voyager aircraft on e-scooters and sprayed red paint into their engines. The vandalism reportedly cost £7m in damages but undoubtedly more damaging was the dent to the government's credibility when it came to security. Three days later, the Home Secretary told parliament the government would 'not tolerate those who put that security at risk' and that she planned to ban Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000. When MPs voted on whether to proscribe Palestine Action the following week they were simultaneously voting on the proscription of two other groups: the Maniacs Murder Cult, a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organisation that explicitly encourages violence, particularly against homeless people; and the Russian Imperial Movement, a white supremacist group that aims to create a new Russian Imperial State and has a paramilitary training programme that has been linked to bombings in Sweden. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Many saw the decision to lump Palestine Action in with these groups as cynical. 'It was like, come on,' one MP said to me, 'no one had ever heard of the other two before. But no one wants to vote against proscribing these groups and then be asked 'why do you support the monster raving fascist party?'' MPs voted to prohibit all three, by 385 to 26. It marked the first time parliament had ever banned a protest group, adding it to a list that includes al-Qaeda, the Wagner Group and Islamic State. 'I just couldn't see how you can consider Palestine Action to be the equal of a terrorist organisation,' said Ian Byrne, a Labour MP who voted against proscription. While Byrne and others acknowledged that many might disagree with or even be outraged by the group's tactics, they also noted it was clear that the group did not advocate violence against people. And Palestine Action's cause, if not necessarily its methods, has broad support: a recent YouGov poll found that 69 per cent of the British public think Israel should immediately call a ceasefire; 55 per cent think the UK government should not approve the supply of parts for F-35 fighter jets to Israel. I asked all the parliamentarians and legal experts I spoke to for this piece about the possibility that the Home Office has secret intelligence on Palestine Action indicating it was planning to engage in violence, or was otherwise more dangerous to the public than had been openly reported. And while no one could rule out the possibility completely, most said that if that was the case, it was very unusual that Cooper wouldn't disclose that fact, particularly considering the potential backlash. Unnamed Home Office officials briefed the press that they were investigating reports that Palestine Action had received funding from Iran. Yet there is no mention of the group in the recent report from the Intelligence and Security Committee, which details Iranian state threats to the UK. Cooper's husband, Ed Balls, suggested on a recent episode of his podcast with George Osborne that people had been charged 'for actions, which… are not yet in the public domain'. Balls didn't respond when I asked him about his statement. When I asked the Home Office about the comments, they said it 'would not be appropriate to comment further due to ongoing legal proceedings'. The UN, Amnesty International and other international organisations have condemned the proscription as 'disproportionate' and 'unnecessary'. 'This is such an escalation compared to any previous proscription order,' one legal expert told me. 'It is beyond international understanding of what terrorism is.' No one denies that Palestine Action has routinely broken the law. Yet there are existing laws in place that address the group's actions: laws against aggravated trespassing, vandalism, criminal damage. The state could – and did – prosecute any campaigner they reasonably suspected of those crimes. There wasn't, however, any way to prosecute those who supported Palestine Action. Now there is. Under sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000, inviting support for or wearing clothes or carrying items suggesting support for a banned organisation is a terrorism offence. In the weeks since Palestine Action was proscribed on 5 July, dozens have been arrested under terrorism charges. On the day of the ban, an 83-year-old retired vicar was arrested in London's Parliament Square for holding a sign that read 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.' A 67-year-old retired teacher was arrested in Leeds on 19 July for holding a placard featuring a gag printed out from Private Eye about unacceptable Palestine Action ('Spraying military planes with paint') and acceptable Palestine Action ('Shooting Palestinians queueing for food'). (Ian Hislop, the magazine's editor, called the arrest 'mind-boggling'.) On 14 July, a 42-year-old in Canterbury was threatened with arrest by police under terrorism charges for holding a Palestine flag and signs that read 'Free Gaza' and 'Israel is committing genocide', but made no reference whatsoever to Palestine Action. 'It's just a mess,' Byrne told me. 'It's just pensioners and priests and vicars and doctors being arrested.' In the US, Donald Trump has overseen a draconian crackdown on pro-Palestine protests by deporting foreign students who have demonstrated against Israel's war. With the proscription of Palestine Action, the UK can arguably go even further: some protesters, depending on what sign or badge they sport, could be imprisoned for up to 14 years. Over the course of my many conversations with MPs, peers, legal experts, civil rights lawyers and campaigners, many of them off the record, the same word surfaced among critics of the government's decision: 'overreach'. If the definition of terrorism has become so wide it includes pensioners holding up placards, what does it even mean to be a terrorist any more? More fundamentally, what kind of country is it that the UK wants to be? The law used to ban Palestine Action, after all, was never supposed to be used in this way. Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, at a pro-Palestine protest in 2018. Photo by Mark Kerrison/Alamy Live News At the end of the last century, Tony Blair's government aimed to streamline the UK's approach to anti-terrorism. Rather than relying on a patchwork of temporary measures that had been put in place during the Troubles, the government wanted to enact a single, overarching law. On 14 December 1999 MPs gathered in the House of Commons for the second reading of that proposed legislation known as the Terrorism Act. Jack Straw, the home secretary at the time, opened the debate by defining terrorism as that which 'involves the threat or use of serious violence for political, religious or ideological ends'. Many MPs were concerned about the act's broad definition of terrorism, which includes actions involving serious violence, damage to property, or endangering life for a political, religious or ideological purpose. Could that not potentially be applied to activist groups that engaged in peaceful direct action, asked several MPs. What about Greenpeace? The organisation had in recent years made headlines for occupying and destroying genetically modified crops, among other direct-action campaigns. Straw dismissed concerns. 'I know of no evidence whatever that Greenpeace is involved in any activity that would fall remotely under the scope of this measure,' he said. 'We are not talking about demonstrations that get out of hand.' Furthermore, he suggested that dwelling on theoretical future applications of the act were pointless. 'Of course, we can all invent hypothetical circumstances – fantastic circumstances – in which any of us, according to the criminal code, could be charged and subject to conviction,' he said. 'We know that, in the real world in which we live, the criminal law is subject to a significant series of checks and balances… Such circumstances therefore do not arise, and I do not believe that they ever will.' Assurances made, the bill passed into law the following summer. But campaigners and many legal experts were unnerved. Mike Schwarz, a civil liberties lawyer who has represented Greenpeace for 25 years, told me 'the legislation had a chilling effect – perhaps it was intended to have a chilling effect on campaigners because suddenly the word 'terror' was bandied around in as much a political, as legal, way'. He was particularly concerned with the 'vagueness' of the definition: section 1 defines terrorism as an act that involves 'serious violence' or 'serious damage' to property. 'The word 'serious' – it's so susceptible to a fluid interpretation, it's uncertain and it was a deep concern at the time.' Another legal expert told me that 'it was always very, very concerning that at its lowest, even a threat of serious damage to property is terrorism if it's ideological in motivation'. They said 'you're giving the executive a blank cheque, almost'. Yet just 14 months after the bill was passed, 9/11 happened and the spectre of terrorism in the West shifted. As the debate on how to tackle terrorism was dominated by responses to al-Qaeda, arguments about Greenpeace and domestic groups fell away. Though several aspects of the Terrorism Act and its interpretation sparked controversies over the next two decades – including section 44, which allowed for random stop and searches – proscription power, which is at the discretion of the home secretary, was arguably used relatively carefully. Even in the febrile atmosphere of post-9/11 Britain, direct action wasn't viewed harshly by the public. When anti-war protesters broke into RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire in 2003 in order to sabotage US bomber jets and prevent them from flying to Iraq, they were caught and charged with criminal damage. In a series of trials, the protesters, known as the Fairford Five, argued their actions were justified because they were trying to prevent an atrocity. One was represented by a young human-rights barrister named Keir Starmer. Most of the trials either ended with hung juries or acquittals; one defendant was fined, another was given a curfew for several months. That public sympathy might still exist. Juries previously found a number of Palestine Action members not guilty, including for a six-day rooftop occupation of a drone factory, after defendants argued their actions were justified in order to save Palestinian lives and protect property at immediate risk of drone bombardment. Yet over the past five years or so, the state's approach to direct action has changed. A tightening noose of restrictions under successive Conservative governments has led to protest being increasingly curtailed. In 2022, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act made 'intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance' a statutory offence, which now carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. The Tories then introduced the Public Order Act 2023, which made it an offence for protesters to obstruct transport networks or to chain themselves to any objects. These laws were passed in an effort to clamp down on the increasing direct action by environmental protest movements such as Just Stop Oil – and were effective. After a series of multi-year sentences were handed down to Just Stop Oil activists, the group announced in March this year that it would no longer engage in direct action. But the outright ban of a protest group is a step change. Huda Ammori is fighting to challenge proscription, in a case still pending at the Royal Court of Justice. Legal experts told me that the Human Rights Act, which mandates that the state has a legal obligation to protect the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, could lead to the proscription being overturned. But the underlying state hostility towards protest in general and direct action in particular isn't something that will be easily erased. That hostility seems only to be escalating. The amount of time between Jack Straw's assurances in parliament and the proscription of a direct-action group was more than 25 years. The amount of time between the proscription of Palestine Action and police threatening to arrest a woman in Kent for terrorism because she held a sign that read 'Free Gaza' was just nine days. [See also: Keir Starmer's Palestine stance risks pleasing no one] Many of the people I spoke to stressed that branding a non-violent protest group as a terrorist organisation undermines what the average person considers as terrorism. Terrorism exists in the public imagination as IRA car bombs, suicide vests and hijacked planes. As one parliamentarian told me, proscribing a group for direct action just means that 'the entire process of proscription is called into question'. Palestine Action campaigners are unlikely to be arrested under terrorism charges now it has been proscribed. The group, amorphous to begin with, has already functionally dissolved. 'The reality is, it's a campaign organisation,' said Rachael Maskell, now an independent MP after losing the Labour whip. 'So if it will just shut down, something else will come up in its place. These are people that are seeking peace in the Middle East, so different from proscribed organisations.' Instead, it's those guilty by association – the protesters who scrawl the words 'Palestine Action' on a placard or T-shirt – being swept up on terror charges. Throughout the entirety of 2024, there were 248 arrests for terrorist-related activity in the UK, which was the highest number of arrests in a single year since 2019. In the three weeks after Palestine Action was proscribed on 5 July, there were more than 170 arrests for terrorist-related activity. The number of arrests will likely only increase. Pro-Palestine and civil society campaigners are planning a 500-person demonstration in London on 9 August, in which protesters will march holding placards in support of Palestine Action. Tim Crosland, a coordinator for the campaign group Defend Our Juries, told me he expects the Met police to be overwhelmed if they decide to arrest all those publicly supporting the group. 'I think it would take up the majority of the cell space in police stations in London,' he said. 'And you'd be filling them with people holding cardboard signs who are appalled at a genocide.' If dozens of pensioners and student protesters aren't afraid of being arrested on terrorism charges, why would a jihadist or a neo-Nazi? As a legal expert put it to me, 'When everyone is a terrorist, no one is.' Many of the worst-case scenarios raised by MPs during New Labour's introduction of the Terrorism Act have now come true. And many of the critics of this Labour government's decision are letting themselves do what Jack Straw was so reluctant to do back in 1999: imagining the hypothetical circumstances in which the criminal code could be used to charge ever greater numbers of people. A number of the people I spoke to were quick to point out that if the Terrorism Act 2000 had existed at the beginning of the previous century and had been interpreted in the same way it is now, then any number of history-shaping movements could have been snuffed out: the suffragettes, anti-apartheid groups, the Greenham Common women. Who else, they asked, could be banned in the future, perhaps under a leader with more authoritarian instincts than the current government? The scenarios put to me were disturbing. Climate activists, such as Greenpeace or Extinction Rebellion, with their years of damaging property, or any other direct-action group could easily be proscribed. Again, that looseness of the act's language – which so worried MPs, campaigners and legal experts back in 1999 – means the law's interpretation is almost impossible to predict. What if 'damage to property' was reinterpreted, one suggested, not just to mean physical damage to infrastructure but economic harm of any kind? Could a future government ban a trade union that strikes in certain critical sectors? These scenarios might seem far-fetched, fantastic even. Yet once a state crackdown on protest begins, it's impossible to know where it will lead. As the Labour MP Clive Lewis put it to me, 'We should be building a firewall around our democracy, strengthening and deepening it. Because we know that a storm is potentially coming if Nigel Farage wins the next election.' The precedents set and upheld now will underpin what happens to our future. [See also: One year on, tensions still circle Britain's asylum-seeker hotels] Related
Scotsman
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Scotsman
Readers Letters: Trans extremists shut down hopes of reasoned discussion
Calm discussion, not insults, is needed in the gender debate, says reader Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Marie G (Letters, 17 May) postulates that 'biological determination was rejected by feminists and society at large years ago'. I would hazard a guess that that statement is untrue for the majority of both feminists and the public. However, I do agree that we are all more than our biology. She goes on to say that 'trans exclusionary' women can't accept that trans women are not the same as men, so we should not fear them in our spaces. I counter that trans extremists can't accept that trans women are not the same as biological women, hence the Supreme Court ruling. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The vandalism of Millicent Fawcett's statue and the flagrantly aggressive nature of signs on the trans rights demos such as 'Decapitate TERFS', 'The only good TERF is a dead TERF' and to burn certain women as witches, all feed in to a narrative of misogyny that compounds that difference all the more clearly. Trans rights protesters in Edinburgh (Picture: Jeff) It should never have needed the Supreme Court to define what a woman is, but the attempted wholesale cultural appropriation of women and womanhood by trans extremist ideology and the lack of those in authority to call it out, pushed ordinary women into that course of action. Trans and non-binary people make up less than 0.5 per cent of the population and as such they completely deserve the protections they have under the Equality Act 2010. However, an ideology has been disproportionately pushed into schools, organisations and institutions, which is not trying to help people understand or reduce discrimination but actually attempting to change the common meaning and understanding of language and biology, dictating how people speak and behave and generally shut down public discourse. Cloaked as 'social justice', this is neither healthy, democratic or justifiable. With the clarity of the Supreme Court ruling, hopefully extremist voices will quieten and we can have reasoned discussion about how to accommodate the distinct but differing needs of both women and those living as a gender different to their biology. Rona McCall, Strath, Gairloch Clueless Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad What an utter disgrace. We have a government which thinks it is sensible to give away the strategic British-owned Chagos Islands to people whose claim upon them is tenuous to say the least. Not only that; it endangers our (and the US) forces in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean. Add to that a 'deal' with the EU in which we held the ace of UK nuclear defence for which the EU was desperate and from which Keir Starmer could have demanded free trade at the very least. Oh, no. He has given up our fishing grounds to people who have no right to them. No wonder Ursula von der Leyen was grinning like a Cheshire cat at the meeting in London. She probably couldn't believe any leader of the UK could be quite so dim as to agree to 12 years of EU access to our fishing. And what do we get out of it? Oh, yes. We have to allow EU inspectors into our farms and follow EU rules. And maybe (but probably not), go through a different channel when we reach EU airports. Who cares? Has anyone ever had a more inept, clueless national leader, apart from the various separatists in Scotland, of course? Except that they don't really count, of course. Dave Anderson, Aberdeen Brutal acts According to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the criticism of his government's actions in Gaza by Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shows 'they are on the wrong side of humanity'. However, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has described the Netanyahu government as 'a gang of thugs'. What are the facts? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Israeli air force has mercilessly bombed residences, hospitals and warehouses. Gaza has no anti-air defence and practically no military means to strike back. Israel has killed over 50,000 innocents, maimed and wounded thousands more and celebrates a terrorist act which used booby-trapped pagers to blind hundreds of people. The Netanyahu regime has starved the people of Gaza, withholding food and water – and medical supplies. It has forcibly evicted thousands of people from their homes, which have then been blown up. Israel is not 'defending itself', it's practising ethnic cleansing, or genocide. Words of criticism from Nato leaders such as Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy count for nothing. Stopping all arms supplies, sanctions, an economic blockade, and as a last resort, military action against Israel is what is required. William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire Only solution The misguided words of Gerald Edwards and Lewis Finnie (Letters May 23) in defence of the extreme right-wing Israeli Government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank are not helpful. Of course the atrocious actions of Hamas terrorists on 7 October 2023 must be condemned but parroting the propaganda of an Israeli Prime Minister intent on employing totally overwhelming military force to annihilate the Palestinian people will not resolve decades of conflict arising from the forced creation of a legitimate Israeli state. Do either of these gentlemen truly believe that if the remaining Israeli hostages were handed over 'tomorrow' Israel would not only hand over its thousands of Palestinian 'hostages' ('detainees' held without trial) but would cease its decades of persecution of the Palestinian people and prevent Palestinian land from being forcibly taken by 'illegal settlers'? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As in Northern Ireland where sensible voices thankfully prevailed (although some fanatics might have preferred the British Army to have adopted similar tactics to the IDF) the fighting will not cease until both parties are brought together to negotiate a lasting peace, preferably in the form of a two-state solution. Long-term peace will not be secured until Israel's allies stop supplying weapons (it is not a serious argument to compare Iran-supplied rocket-launchers with Western-guided F-35 fighter jets) to the rabid regime that is the current Israeli government and maximise their combined political efforts to end the 'carnage' of an out-of-control 'Israeli Devastation Force'. This is not a war between two regular armies and to criticise governments, including the UK Government, for belatedly moving in a morally necessitated and logically sound direction to end the conflict and mass-suffering is to effectively condone the genocidal slaughter of innocent women and children. Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian Action needed Regarding The Scotsman's editorial on the Scottish Government's Just transition Commission report urging the need for a plan for oil and gas workers (23 May), the concerns raised by offshore workers highlight a challenge we absolutely must solve. The skills gap is often cited, but equally critical is the readiness gap we are facing, with a lack of coordinated systems to support the move into new roles. Without visibility of future opportunities, adaptation of skills, and an aligned industry and government-wide strategy, we risk sidelining a highly experienced workforce who could be one of our strongest assets in a net-zero future. A just transition needs more than ambition. It needs action that matches the pace of change on the ground. Alex Spencer COO, OPITO, Aberdeen Squeeze rich Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Keir Starmer and his cabinet, in particular Rachel Reeves, have been dragged, kicking and screaming, into a reluctant U-turn on the Winter Fuel Payment (your report, 23 May). Significantly, most of the pressure has come from their own increasingly restless and disillusioned backbenchers. To set an £11,500 threshold on this payment simply accentuates their reluctance and, quite frankly, is a sick joke, at which nobody is laughing. In my opinion, this payment should be open to all pensioners, as it was previously, irrespective of their means. Those who don't need it can always donate it to charity. One crying out source of taxes, which is strangely ignored, is the ultra rich, among whom are the self-styled patriotic millionaires. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A wealth tax, more appropriate for a Labour government, would, at a stroke, solve any tax problem, and more than cover a universal Winter Fuel Payment. Whatever else it might achieve, it would go some way to restoring the so called 'grey vote' to support Labour. Ian Petrie, Edinburgh Lesson learned? The Scotsman carries an article on the reintroduction of lynx to the Scottish countryside, stating that they would be retained in a sealed area as allowing them to roam free would cause predation of sheep and lambs (23 May). In that case why were sea eagles reintroduced and allowed to fly free? A popular meal for them is lambs, to the extent that some have taken to nesting close to farms for a quick easy meal. C Lowson, Fareham, Hants Making rules Jill Stephenson speculates that Scotland, as an independent country in the EU, would be subject to the 'demands' of the Common Fisheries Policy (Letters, 23 May). But an independent Scotland would, with its fellow EU members, write the EU rules. Scotland would no longer be a rule-taker, as it was when the UK was in the EU, but one of the EU rule-makers – including on the CFP. E Campbell, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire Write to The Scotsman Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
The Independent
24-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Over 20 trans protests planned across the UK after thousands attend weekend rallies
Trans rights protesters will gather in over 20 locations this weekend for further demonstrations in response to the Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman. The planned action comes after similar events were held in London and Edinburgh over the Easter weekend, drawing thousands of attendees. They follow the ruling on 16 April that the terms 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 'refer to a biological woman and biological sex.' This now means that trans women cannot use single-sex female toilets, changing rooms or compete in women's sports, according to the head of Britain's equalities watchdog. Further rallies are scheduled to take place in cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, Belfast and more. Organisers of the Birmingham rally said the demonstration will aim to show solidarity with those affected by the ruling, which they say has far-reaching implications for transgender people accessing single-sex services and spaces. Brendan McPhillips, one of the organisers of the event, said the city would be presenting a 'united front against hatred and discrimination'. He said: 'This protest is set against the historic backdrop of the gay panic, the lives lost to the AIDS crisis, and reminiscent of the fights from yesteryear that only yester-queers will fully understand. We have seen this hate before and now we must stand united against it once again. 'We stand in a united front, united with a single, common goal; for the BIPOC (black, Indigenous and people of colour), Asian, white, brown, black, Irish traveller and Romani trans, non-binary and intersex voices that have been ignored for too long.' Among the groups supporting the protest, which will be held at 6pm in front of the Birmingham HIV and Aids Memorial in Hurst Street, are Brum Against Hate, the Birmingham LGBT centre and trade unions including Unison and the National Education Union. There are also a further six protests planned for May, with another set to take place in London on the 25th. Thousands of supporters gathered in central London on Saturday for what was billed as an 'emergency demonstration' in response to the Supreme Court's ruling. The Metropolitan Police said it is examining footage from the event amid claims some demonstrators had placards featuring death threats. It is also appealing for witnesses after seven statues were vandalised during the protest. 'Fag rights' and a heart were painted on the banner held on the statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett, and 'trans rights are human rights' was sprayed on the pedestal bearing a memorial to South African military leader and statesman Jan Christian Smuts.
Daily Mail
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Police U-turn on refusal to investigate 'historic' trans activists' death threat signs - after realising they happened at the weekend
Police are investigating death threats on placards seen during a protest against the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman. A number of activists were pictured holding signs threatening violence towards 'TERFS' - including disturbing images of people being stabbed and hanged - while taking part in Saturday's protest in Central London. While most held up placards fighting for trans rights, two signs spotted at the rally in Parliament Square showed an illustration of hangman alongside the words 'The only good TERF is a .... TERF'. The term 'TERF' is used to describe people whose views on gender identity are seen as hostile towards transgender people. Meanwhile, another sign showed an image of a man with a bloodied knife stuck in his eye, alongside the caption: 'Are you a... transphobe? Why not try a... D.I.Y. LOBOTOMY.' The Met Police said it was reviewing footage of the protest and vowed to take action if there were signs being displayed that broke the law. But it claimed the images and signs were from 'historic events, did not take place in London, or do not constitute a criminal offence'. The force has since changed its stance after the Telegraph reportedly presented it with evidence that the signs were present during the protest on Saturday. A third graphic sign read: 'Trans women are women. Trans men are men. If you don't like that, go s*** somewhere else.' Examples on the sign of where to do that included 'on a pile of Harry Potter books' or 'on the head of another TERF'. Protestors also targeted a number of statues in the capital. The Metropolitan Police said they were investigating the incidents as criminal damage after the statues were daubed with graffiti. Notably, a statue of the suffragette Millicent Fawcett was defaced with a banner reading 'F** rights'. Millicent Fawcett was a pioneer for women's rights and led the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and advocated for women's rights through peaceful, non-violent methods, including lobbying and public speaking. Other defaced statues included those of Jan Christian Smuts, Nelson Mandela, Sir Robert Peel, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Derby and Viscount Palmerston. Parliament square is home to 12 statues of political figures including Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi. Officers are currently searching through CCTV footage from the surrounding area to find the culprits and are appealing to anyone who may have been in attendance with information, footage or pictures to come forward by calling 101 quoting 01/7396927/25. Chief Superintendent, Stuart Bell, who led the policing operation for the protest, said: 'Criminal damage and vandalism like this has no place on the streets of London and spoils the area for locals and those visiting. 'While the police support the public's right to protest, criminality like this is senseless and unacceptable. We are pursuing this and will take action against those responsible. 'Working with the Greater London Authority (GLA) plans are underway to remove the graffiti but this requires specialist equipment and we are confident this will be done shortly. 'We are keen to speak to those who saw anything on the day and urge anyone with information, pictures or footage to come forward.' The protest came days after the UK Supreme Court ruled that the definition of a woman is based on biological sex, meaning transgender women are no longer considered women in the eyes of the law. The ruling means trans women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) could potentially be excluded from single-sex spaces if 'proportionate'.
