EXCESSIVE POLICING OF PENTONVILLE DEMO IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE ACTION HUNGER STRIKERS ~ Blade Runner ~ The traditional anarchist New Year’s Eve gathering outside HMP Pentonville was joined on December 31, 2025 by a solidarity demonstration for remand prisoners currently on hunger strike, organised by Palestine Pulse alongside other grassroots groups. Hundreds of people assembled on Caledonian Road carrying Palestinian flags and banners, with the demonstration centred on solidarity with prisoners rather than disruption. Nevertheless, police responded with a large and visibly disproportionate deployment. Protesters counted at least 21 police vans in the immediate area, equating to roughly 170 officers. Many were deployed in boiler suits and carrying long batons, signalling a preparedness for confrontation rather than assembly facilitation. Despite the heavy police presence, passing drivers repeatedly sounded their horns in support of the demonstration. Officers attempted to confine protesters behind railings on a narrow stretch of pavement, but as numbers grew this quickly became untenable. Protesters spilled onto the road and began a spontaneous march around the prison block, entering Wheelwright Street. Police reinforcements arrived as officers moved to block surrounding streets, fragmenting movement and preventing the crowd from circulating freely. > The march was halted and forced back towards Caledonian Road. Further attempts > to move south were blocked by additional cordons, leaving protesters penned-in > on the carriageway. The aggressive policing approach generated predictable > friction, resulting in minor injuries and two arrests, both reportedly > released in the early hours of 1 January. Following the standoff, demonstrators regrouped and moved away from the prison under continued police pressure, later continuing through central London and dispersing at Piccadilly Circus. At the centre of the protests is a coordinated hunger strike involving eight remand prisoners held in multiple UK prisons, including Pentonville, Bronzefield, New Hall and Peterborough. All are being held without conviction for alleged offences linked to Palestine Action. Several prisoners are approaching 60 days without food, while two others previously paused their hunger strike following severe health deterioration after more than seven weeks. The hunger strikers’ demands include the closure of Elbit Systems’ UK sites and an end to prolonged pre-trial detention. Doctors, families and supporters have repeatedly warned of escalating health risks, with hospitalisations reported and serious concerns raised about irreversible damage. > Recent demonstrations outside Pentonville have already focused on solidarity > with one of the hunger strikers, Kamran, who is among the Filton 24 arrestees > and has been hospitalised for the fifth time after more than 50 days on hunger > strike. NYE demonstrations were also planned outside prisons in Brixton and > Peterborough this year. Since the proscription of Palestine Action earlier in 2025, the British state has increasingly relied on remand, isolation, and restrictive custodial regimes against those accused of involvement in the group. Supporters describe a pattern including censorship of books and correspondence, denial of prison work, transfers far from family networks, and repeated refusals of bail. > Taken together, activists view the policing of demonstrations and the > treatment of remand prisoners as part of a domestic counter-insurgency > strategy, in which overwhelming police presence, pre-emptive containment and > punitive detention function to send a broader warning to those considering > militant solidarity with Palestine. > In this context, the hunger strike has become a focal point, seen as exposing > how prisons and public order policing are being used to suppress dissent and > discipline political resistance. > > As the new year begins, the prisoners’ fast continues. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Photos: Blade Runner The post Hundreds at New Year’s Eve London prison protest appeared first on Freedom News.

LABOUR’S WEAPONISATION OF XENOPHOBIC POLITICS NORMALISES CRUELTY AND ENABLES DIVISION OF WORKERS  ~ Simon and Uri talk about the government’s asylum policy abomination, the Pally Action hunger strike, mountains of waste in Oxfordshire, the recent Bristol “Patriots” March, and Maoist violence against Athens anarchists. The post Anarchist News Review: Asylum abomination and Pally hunger strike appeared first on Freedom News.

ARRESTS OUTSIDE PARLIAMENT RISK CENTRING LIBERAL FREEDOMS INSTEAD OF PALESTINIAN SURVIVAL ~ Kell w Farshéa ~ Its 9pm, last Saturday (6 September). I’m standing on the pavement in the dark, watching the arrests. Police vans queue down the side of Parliament Square, engines idling. Police in high-vis jackets wade through the crowd of chanting singing people. Every five minutes cops emerge from the crowd carrying someone pron,e whilst another cop walks alongside telling them that they are being arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000. A group of supporters chanting “we are the revolution” accompany a man walking to the police van. Others shout “shame, shame” or “are you proud of yourself”. On and on it goes. Yet how English and polite and obedient it is. People are quietly carried to the vans where they climb inside unaided. I see people chat to the police officers as if we are all on the same side—decency, civility, democratic values, common outrage. The hours pass, more people are driven off through the police road block to the police cells. Its relentless. Google tells me that in August 2025 there were only 900 cells available in UK men’s prisons. Yet almost 1,500 people have been charged for explicitly stating they support Palestine Action. Indeed the internet suggests many people charged will face a fine rather than imprisonment. The Prime Minister and his new Home Secretary look like paper tigers, not resolute law makers. 1,500 people showing they are not afraid of the consequences in breaking one of the more serious crimes on statute because the law is seen as morally bankrupt. There is something powerful in this spectacle of defiance played out in front of parliament at night. And yet If passive resistance is so powerful, if the prison and police cells are in such short supply—why have the mass protests against genocide not brought 100,000 marchers to sit down in the streets of London? Indeed why was it only when UK citizen’s rights were threatened that people were prepared to be arrested en masse? I am absolutely sure that members of Palestine Action still want the focus to be on Gaza, but it seems like white liberalism is now more focussed instead on the proscription itself. And beyond the sight of elderly pensioners bedecked in military medals being arrested—how effective is this protest at stopping the genocide and ending the occupation? How much has the proscription taken the focus off the millions being starved to death in Gaza? Perhaps in the face of almost two years of mass demonstrations, emails and petitions it is understandable that people grasp for some kind of meaningful protest. Yet in an age when Parliament is uninterested in moral, genocidal, ecocidal or democratic principles, this may no longer be relevant. And yet, the questions must be asked. How can we more effectively resist the actual genocide? How can we avoid centring the debate over liberal democratic ideas and conditional freedoms, and instead re-centre it on the colonial capitalist murder of the people of Palestine? Let us remember that Mr. Starmer is not sympathetic to principled ‘gesture’ arrests. He is on record saying XR actionists should get long sentences. Starmer endorses segregationist policies for trans people and leans into Farage and the EDL’s fascist language on immigration. He would leave every pensioner in London on bail and still not allow PA to return. The mass arrests on Saturday were magnificent, cinematic even. But lets not pretend it’s not a sideshow distracting from the real issue—ending the genocide and fighting for a Free Palestine. Not one Palestinian child’s life will be saved by any of these arrests unless they refocus on the key issue: that while the government mouths platitudes about the man-made famine, it provides logistical support for drone attacks on children and targeted assassinations of journalists. > — “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre” (French General Pierre > Bosquet on the charge of the British Light Brigade at Balaclava, 25 October > 1854) > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Photos: Peter Marshall The post Proscription Action: It’s magnificent, but it’s not war appeared first on Freedom News.

DEFEND OUR JURIES SAY 1,000 PEOPLE SIGNED UP FOR SATURDAY’S MASS DISOBEDIENCE IN LONDON ~ Scott Harris ~ Defend Our Juries (DOJ) has pledged the “largest ever day of defiance” of the Palestine Action ban this Saturday, after seven key members were arrested in home raids by counter-terrorism police. The arrests, carried out yesterday (2 September) under section 12 of the Terrorism Act, targeted DOJ spokespeople who had hosted public Zoom calls for those signing up to the campaign. Among those detained were lawyer Tim Crosland, care worker David Nixon, and retired engineer Tony Harvey, who has already been charged in Scotland. At the time of a press conference on Wednesday, the group said several of those arrested had been held for more than 24 hours, exceeding the custody time limit. Amnesty International condemned the raids as “a blatant attempt to muzzle freedom of speech” and called for the immediate release of those detained. The organisation has now launched a global campaign urging prosecutors in all three UK jurisdictions to drop charges against protesters. Saturday’s Parliament Square action will see over 1,000 people pledge to risk arrest by holding signs stating: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. Organisers say the number of signatories is already double that of last month’s action, when more than 500 people were detained in London in the Met’s largest mass arrests since the Committee of 100 protests in 1961. Defend Our Juries has advised participants to reject “street bail” and insist on their right to station-based legal advice, predicting that police will not have capacity to process the numbers. The 6 September protests mark the first coordinated defiance of the ban across all three legal systems in the UK. A sit-in is planned at Queen Elizabeth House in Edinburgh, where Scottish prosecutors recently dropped cases against Palestine Action supporters after the Scottish Human Rights Commission warned the arrests risked breaching the law. In Derry, campaigners will also defy the ban, adding pressure on Stormont and Holyrood not to enforce Westminster’s measures. Home secretary Yvette Cooper announced the proscription of Palestine Action in July, the first time a domestic protest group has been banned as a “terrorist” organisation. The move has been widely condemned by rights groups, UN rapporteurs, and Labour members, with polling showing over 70% of the party’s base opposed. A judicial review of the decision is due to be heard in November. The post Mass defiance of Palestine Action ban “will not be silenced” by home raids appeared first on Freedom News.

THE PROSCRIPTION IS PART OF A WIDER PUSH TO STIFLE DISSENT IN AN INCREASINGLY AUTHORITARIAN BRITAIN ~ Kevin Blowe ~ The repression of political dissent in Britain has been escalating for years: first against Black Lives Matter and environmental campaigners and now the Palestine solidarity movement. Throughout the last 20 months, campaigners have been demonised, accused of ‘radicalisation’, placed under increasing police surveillance and subjected to a toxic and invariably racist discourse in both Westminster and the mainstream media. All of this has been deliberately designed to undermine the legitimacy of calls for action on Gaza and to encourage the public, especially Jewish communities, to feel fearful of Palestine protesters. The recent proscription of Palestine Action therefore represents a new low point, within a growing understanding that Britain is slipping into a state of repression. However, the real danger is what happens over the next few months. We do not know if the police intend to vigorously pursue any trace of sympathy for Palestine Action, conflate any form of direct action as ‘connected to terrorism’, or go after other pro-Palestinian groups. As Netpol said in our statement, we are likely to witness increased surveillance, more police raids, more doxxing by apologists for Israel demanding arrests and a greater willingness by the police to comply. It is also possible that venues, universities or even banks become nervous about any mention of “Palestine”. What remains impossible to predict is how this dissuades campaigners from protesting at all.  That is why we want to make sure the movements we work with understand the dangers we face and prepare for the worst. Meanwhile, Westminster continues to exist inside a bubble: one where fringe groups like ‘We Believe in Israel’ and loud partisan cranks like Lord Walney are heard, where expressing words like ‘genocide’ or ‘apartheid’ or criticism of Israel is punished, but where the anger and resentment across Britain about the massacre of children in Gaza, every night on our television screens, is ignored. Our worry is that this insularity encourages ideas about banning even more groups: some lobbyists are already openly talking about this. But the greater fear is that we are back to the period of the so-called “war on terror” in the early 2000s, where more groups are targeted by the police, where Muslims are treated as ‘suspect’ communities and where even more new police powers and new criminal offences are introduced. Those who lived through this before remember the huge damage it caused to the social fabric of the country. Over a quarter of a century ago, the then Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw was challenged, as he presented the second reading of what would become the Terrorism Act 2000, on its expanded definition of terrorism. It was, assured Straw, the “threat or use of serious violence for political, religious or ideological ends”, that “aims to create a climate of extreme fear”. The legislation would not, he insisted, “focus on demonstrations, which are a normal activity in a democracy” but rather on “the opposite end of the spectrum. It is about deterring, preventing and, where necessary, investigating heinous crime—heinous because terrorism seeks to destroy not only lives, but the foundation of our society”. Later in the debate, Home Office minister Charles Clarke was keen to tell MPs that that the ability to proscribe organisations “is a heavy power; it will be used only when absolutely necessary”. There was one very prescient moment in these parliamentary debates, when Straw was asked about the possibility that a government in the Middle East might exert pressure on British ministers to take action against a militant group, using terrorism laws, to protect major defence contracts. Straw dismissed this as impossible, insisting that even if “holders of my office, regardless of party, are completely venal”, the police and prosecutors were independent of political influence. Yet in August 2023, it was revealed that Israeli embassy officials were exerting precisely this kind of pressure. None of these promises and reassurances remain even remotely true, now that another Labour Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has banned a protest group in circumstances Straw and Clarke insisted were impossible. The immediate impact on Palestine Action of using the “heavy power” of proscription is that it no longer exists. It became an illegal organisation at midnight on 4 July. Regardless of Cooper trying to portray the group’s sensible security precautions against police infiltration as a sinister ‘cell’ structure, it seems extremely unlikely that the group will now decide to ‘go underground’—it had always been a popular movement that prioritised ordinary people from working-class communities choosing to take action against the presence of Israel’s Elbit Systems in their towns and cities. However, what will not change are the reasons why the group existed in the first place. We will still have a government invested in the idea of defence industries saving the British economy, that continues to arm Israel and is heavily influenced by arms trade lobbyists. Politicians will remain unmoved, even contemptuous of pleas to end the genocide in Gaza. Some people will, as a result, continue to want their solidarity for Palestinians to actually make a difference, by using direct-action tactics as the only remaining option.  What Yvette Cooper evidently hopes is that labelling this as “terrorism” will terrify enough people into silence. But no-one really knows, including her, whether this will work—and as long as the suffering in Gaza continues, it seems unlikely. Yesterday we remembered the 20th anniversary of those who died on 7/7, the result of actions that were unquestionably intended to terrorise and to create a backlash from the state. Many also mourned the subsequent police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, the victim of that backlash. Yet here we are, with the government insisting criminal damage is ‘terrorism’ and packaging a ban on Palestine Action together with two violent far-right overseas groups, telling MPs they must vote to ban them all, or none of them. It was so incredibly cynical and frankly, but it also feels like an insult to the loved ones of those who died in London in 2005, the victims of genuine acts of terrorism. Britain’s extraordinarily broad counter-terrorism laws make this possible. What little credibility these laws ever had, or the platitudes offered in 1999 by Jack Straw and others that the Human Rights Act would provide protections against this kind of authoritarianism, have been fatally undermined. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photo: Alan Stanton on Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0 The post Will the ban on Palestine Action terrify enough people into silence? appeared first on Freedom News.

THE CLUMSY ATTEMPT TO SILENCE ARTISTS OPPOSING GENOCIDE ONLY MAKES THEIR MESSAGE LOUDER ~ Stanton Cree ~ Over the last week I found myself in the interesting position of having to navigate the British establishment’s censorship just to listen to a bit of music, watch some TV, and a film. I started my weekend wanting to catch Kneecap‘s Glastonbury set. I had to wait, however, until the BBC uploaded it to iPlayer after caving to government pressure and declining to livestream the group. Having missed Bob Vylan, I then had to search for a recording, as the BBC refused to upload it after an explosion of outrage from politicians and journalists. Next, I had to make time to watch To Kill a War Machine before it will presumably get banned for supporting non-violent direct action terrorism. Finally, I got to watch Gaza: Doctors Under attack on Channel 4 as the BBC, once again, refused to show it. By now I’m sure you’ve realised the thing that connects all this together is Palestine, and the suppression of anyone or anything that draws attention to the ongoing genocide. Enough has been said about the blatant hypocrisy of the garden-variety ‘Free Speech Warrior’ working to silence those speaking out against racism, sexism, homophobia, and genocide. What we are witnessing now, however, are very obvious examples of state censorship—ironic given those in government are always banging on about a ‘Free Speech crisis‘. Given my low opinion and regularly validated distrust of government, state censorship isn’t particularly surprising to me. The BBC has traditionally aligned itself with the imperial status quo, and the Labour party is just as much part of the establishment as the Tories. State intervention to deny artists their rights to expression is unfortunately nothing new either—an ongoing example is the cops’ continued gagging of Grime and Drill artists. What I do find astonishing is how quickly the pretence of state non-interference in the arts has been discarded. Politicians and media have shifted from quietly ignoring censorship to openly endorsing it when it comes to Kneecap and Bob Vylan—who have consequently had shows pulled. What is it that the powers that be find so egregious? Apparently, the idea that genocide is not just wrong but should also be resisted. What’s impressive is the lengths the establishment is going to in order to make such a mundanely moral stance as “stop genocide” seem sinister. The BBC and politicians have rushed to condemn the “antisemitic sentiments” and “hate speech” supposedly expressed by Bob Vylan, but none have bothered to show their work. Exactly what they’re referring to is left to speculation. Desperate to vilify the Vylans, the BBC’s cultural editor went as far as conflating two separate statements made during the set, which seems to be the basis for further erroneous claims that Bob Vylan were “calling for the death of Israeli troops”. But why let a little thing like context get in the way of a juicy story? The Mail on Sunday went even further, entirely inventing a quote to justify their unhinged front page demand for the state repression of musicians. Most of the focus has been on the chant of “death to the IDF”, which has been presented without any context even by supposedly unbiased, centrist, and liberal individuals and publications. International law recognises the legitimate use of force against an occupying army. The claim that the chant somehow calls for death to Israelis (let alone all Jews) makes about as much sense as saying that “death to fascism” was a call to kill all Italians. As for antisemitism—it is a common tactic of propagandists to muddy the waters by conflating the Israeli state with its citizenship or with the Jewish people as a whole. By saying an attack on the Israeli military is an attack on all Jews, they are playing right into the hands of Israeli state propaganda. The evolution of a lie, courtesy of BBC Culture Editor, Katie Razzall Bob Vylan have never hidden what they are about. They are aggressively and unapologetically political, snugly fitting within the traditions of both Punk and Rap. Their songs are typical anti-racist and anti-fascist fare and the combination of anarcho-punk with Grime hits hard and doesn’t leave much room for misunderstanding. Glastonbury’s own website describes their shows as “a cathartic experience where rage and protest meets positivity and joy”. Which begs the question, why pretend they didn’t know what they were getting? Yet now even Glastonbury’s organisers, who have long presented the festival as an open forum for left leaning politics, went from Michael Eavis saying last week that “People that don’t agree with the politics of the event can go somewhere else” to abruptly following establishment voices in distancing themselves from Bob Vylan. An impressive U-turn after their initial support of their line up. With no remarks regarding acts such as Amyl and the Sniffers, Inhaler, CMAT, and of course, Kneecap, it certainly appears to be a response to political pressure. The condemnation of Bob Vylans’s supposed ‘incitement to violence’ stinks of exactly the kind of liberal pearl-clutching addressed in the duo’s 2021 song “Pretty Songs”. As a society we have been conditioned to accept the idea that any grave injustice should be passively resisted and that any kind of physical resistance is morally questionable. The irony of the government condemning moral support for militant action, while it actively actively remilitarises and sells weapons abroad, should not be lost on anyone. Fortunately, the censorship crusade already seems to be backfiring in the most predictable way. The more power used to suppress the message, the louder it gets. Drawing attention to Bob Vylan, along with Kneecap, Palestine Action and others just increases support for them. The clumsy attempts to demonise these groups further exacerbates the growing rupture between the people and the political establishment. There is nothing ethically dubious in stating support for the right of victims to fight those carrying out a genocide. To suggest otherwise clearly favours annihilation. Pacifism is merely a pretty ideal that benefits the elite and those who seek to maintain the status quo. The appeal to pacifism and the presupposition that any and all violence is inherently wrong, strikes to the very heart of this storm in a teacup. Bob Vylan are under no obligation to pander to such sensibilities, and neither are we. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top photo: Brian J. Matis on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 The post Vilifying the Vylans or: How I learned to stop censoring and call for death to the BBC appeared first on Freedom News.

WE DON’T HAVE LONG BEFORE OLD-FASHIONED AUTHORITARIAN STATE CENSORSHIP IS EMPLOYED TO STOP US TALKING ABOUT ONE OF THE MOST SHAMEFUL EPISODES IN RECENT LABOUR HISTORY. We react to the Labour Party’s decision to not just ban a non-violent campaign group, but also the voicing of any public support for them or their actions. We can only do so in the gap between the Commons vote earlier today, and its confirmation by the Lords tomorrow … The post Anarchist News Review: The proscribing of Palestine Action appeared first on Freedom News.

THIS LUCID AND PASSIONATE DOCUMENTARY ABOUT PALESTINE ACTION IS WELL WORTH VIEWING BEFORE STARMER’S “SOCIAL DEMOCRATS” CENSOR IT ~ Rob Ray ~ I can certainly see why the makers of To Kill A War Machine are worried that proscription of the subject of their documentary, Palestine Action (PA), will turn into a ban for them too. The Rainbow Collective have produced one of the most explicitly pro-direct action features I’ve seen in years. Unapologetic in tone, the programme includes interviews with members and supporters, who talk about their motivations, strategies and the ways in which State repression has ramped up since the start of Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. PA hardly needs much of an introduction after a week of intense media focus. But in brief, over the last half-decade the non-violent group has carried out a campaign of sabotage against Israeli arms firm Elbit, which operates numerous sites across the UK and is well meshed with Britain’s corporate and political Establishments. Its tactics have been to target not just the property of Elbit itself – making it as expensive as possible to operate in Britain specifically – but to also go down the supply and financing chain, hitting the likes of Barclays for investing in the firm and Arconic for selling it monitor screens.  Produced in a kinetic, glitchy manner which will be familiar to anyone who has watched many activist film productions, To Kill A War Machine flicks between footage of PA activists smashing through windows and rooftops, interviews, slickly dystopian Elbit advertising bragging about its lethality and accuracy, and blurred but nevertheless horrifying footage of the child victims of such “precision.”  Included in the interviewees are several recognisable figures, in particular eloquent takes from Sukaina Rajwani, mother of Filton 18 prisoner Fatema, Shezana Hafiz of Cage International, and Palestine Action founder members Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard.  The analysis and insights provided are well-presented, lucid and passionate, with Rajwani’s deeply admirable fortitude speaking out in what must be extraordinarily stressful circumstances watching her daughter going through the hell of Kafkaesque persecution being particularly worthy of note.   A minor quibble I might have with interviewee Lowkey’s otherwise solid analysis is his focus on how they draw primarily from the Raytheon Nine and suggestion that their iteration is unique, whereas throughout, I was seeing influences from the animal rights movement of the 1990s and 2000s, which might be useful to draw out a bit. The campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences has strong parallels to Palestine Action’s strategy, particularly “go down the chain, find the weak points”.  They’re also being dealt with in similar ways (with some crucial differences).  In the case of HLS, government repression was more subtle, but used the same playbook – identify, vilify, isolate and shock. Rather than use the wild overkill of anti-terror legislation, in the 2000s Establishment reaction took the form, initially, of information gathering and infiltration by the State, while the media portrayed animal rights activists in the most ghoulish of ways, with the aim of dividing a perceived “extreme” wing of the movement from the cover of broader support.  Legislation was then beefed up, with injunctions being used to physically push legal campaigning away from the gates of the research establishments. Punishments were increased to allow for exemplary sentencing – frighten people off by making it clear political crime in particular was unacceptable, in a way that non-political crime was not. Back in 2015 I interviewed an AR activist from the time about this for Black Flag (p.16-17), who explained: “People had been sent down before, but it became multiple forms of harassment. We’d do a local stall about animal rights and local cops would show up trying to shut us down. They’d stand in front of the stall, intimidating people away. They’d follow activists around, stalk them at demos, anything to isolate us. At government level they changed laws to facilitate crackdowns. Harassment legislation was extended to companies after we challenged the idea in court. In SOCA (section 146-7) they specifically included anti-animal rights rules by banning home demos. That was specifically to stop us from getting shareholders’ addresses and targeting the communities where they lived, which was extremely effective. All the cops who used these laws have moved on now, so they’ve fallen out of use, but these laws are still on the books.” It might seem odd that Starmer, who would be well acquainted with such strategies from his time as a pro-bono movement lawyer in the 2000s, doesn’t simply re-employ them before leaping to terror legislation. Until, of course, you remember that his priority is not to stop a movement, but to outflank his political critics while shoring up his international position. The disastrous effects of proscription on free speech and individual liberty are simple collateral damage in the cause of silencing far-right “two-tier” accusations and brown-nosing the US.   The documentary highlights this procession around 3/4 of the way in, noting the path from an early 2022 meeting between Priti Patel and Elbit (shading into a dodgy inclusion of a rep from the supposedly independent Crown Prosecution Service), through to Labour’s use of arrests for non-violent action under terror legislation and a ghosting of activists within the prison system so thorough that even their lawyers couldn’t reach them. A clear path of private complaint, Establishment mobilisation, and politically-charged escalation towards the moment of outright repression we find ourselves in. The hope in the face of proscription is it might finally break through to the general public that it’s all our rights that are at risk when a political party decides to arbitrarily apply the label of “terrorist” to strictly non-violent forms of dissent. Unlike the bleating of far-right types about university students telling them to get lost, proscription is full-on, indisputable State censorship in the raw.  To Kill A War Machine is a solidly made, inspiring film to watch, but even if it were absolute rubbish, it has already done the job it set out to do. I ended up watching it in a meeting room, on a borrowed projector, via a hastily-organised showing by people intent on getting it out before the proscription vote. Up and down the country this weekend, and again tonight, others are doing the same. It’s already out there, and a State ban would come too late to shut the barn door. Now it’s not just the story of Palestine Action, it’s the story of Palestine Action they don’t want you to see.  To Kill A War Machine is available now and can be streamed or downloaded from their website. The post Film Review: To Kill A War Machine appeared first on Freedom News.

THE PROPOSED BAN, ROOTED IN COLONIAL COUNTER-INSURGENCY LAW, COULD END UP DEMYSTIFYING DIRECT ACTION AND INCREASING PUBLIC RESOLVE ~ Blade Runner ~ This week, the UK Parliament is expected to approve the proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000. This follows the group’s recent breach of RAF Brize Norton, where activists sprayed red paint into the engine of a Voyager aircraft. The decision, pushed through by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, will make it a criminal offence not only to participate in or support the group’s actions, but to be affiliated with it at all—even through symbols or verbal expressions of solidarity. Proscription under the Terrorism Act does not require a threat to life. It only requires “serious damage to property” for political or ideological purposes—language elastic enough to include sabotage, paint, glue, and disruption.  The 2000 Act was not simply a response to armed threats, but echoed Britain’s colonial counterinsurgency playbook. Refined in Ireland through internment, criminalisation, and the stripping of political legitimacy, it is a way to target domestic resistance, what its architects called “sub-state terrorism”. The Act created a framework to criminalise any group that threatens the legitimacy of Britain’s role in the imperial order, even symbolically. It is designed to preserve imperial infrastructure from dissent and to outlaw solidarity. Since its founding in 2020, Palestine Action has carried out more than 300 actions of sabotage and occupation against UK-based arms firms—especially Elbit Systems, which supplies drones and weapons to Israel. Its actions have included rooftop occupations, factory shutdowns, and symbolic interventions like defacing a Balfour portrait at Cambridge. These actions have caused damage in the millions, forced site closures, led to investors and suppliers abandoning the company, and brought the UK’s complicity in the Gaza genocide into public consciousness. So is Palestine Action simply being punished for its effectiveness? There might be more to it than that. Throwing paint into jet engines is symbolic, but the threat the State responds to is the potential for replication. The government fears that if these tactics go unchecked, they might signal a broader refusal: permission-less revolt, viral sabotage, and the spread of generalised dissent. The occupation of a factory or breach of an airbase is less dangerous than the contagious idea that such things can and should be done. As Palestine Action put it: “When our government fails to uphold their moral and legal obligations, it is the responsibility of ordinary citizens to take direct action. The terrorists are the ones committing a genocide, not those who break the tools used to commit it”.  Palestine Action’s example has already inspired offshoots abroad. In the US, a group formerly called Palestine Action US rebranded as Unity of Fields, aiming to apply similar tactics to disrupt the U.S. military-industrial complex. They’ve staged demonstrations at Elbit-linked sites in Massachusetts and were removed from social media as their messaging intensified. In Belgium, a pro-Palestinian group known as “Stop Arming Israel” vandalised an Elbit-affiliated warehouse, causing significant damage to equipment. The State isn’t only targeting disruption, however. It’s trying to discipline public consciousness. Palestine Action has become a symbol of courage. The group’s actions and social media presence have helped demystify direct action by restoring its ethical imperative and framing it as an accessible, effective method of struggle. Against this, Labour is pursuing a broad strategy of dissent management, where surveillance and legal frameworks merge into pre-emptive criminalisation. This is governance by threat projection: people are punished not only for what they do, but for what they might inspire. Finally, the proscription takes place against the wider backdrop of far-right resurgence in the UK, Europe, the US and elsewhere. The governments are adopting reactionary logics like border control, militarism, and nationalism that have become bipartisan policy. Starmer’s Labour has fully embraced securitised nationalism, promising tougher borders, hedging on arms embargoes, and reinforcing British militarism. The mainstream left, in favour of ineffective mass protests, has consciously failed to defend disruptive action. By drawing lines between “legitimate dissent” and “extremism”, repression has been legitimised. Yet historically, this often backfires. UK state overreach can galvanise popular support: from Bloody Sunday swelling IRA ranks, to recent juror acquittals of Palestine Action activists affirming their actions as justified. The State’s repression should be met with solidarity across movements. In the group’s impact, there is inspiration—and a reminder that even in an age of technocratic authoritarianism, small, determined collectives can still shift the ground. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: Mural in Gaza in recognition of Palestine Action (photo: Olive Palestine) The post Palestine Action proscription: Criminalising effectiveness appeared first on Freedom News.

IT COMES TO SOMETHING WHEN EVEN VOICING SUPPORT FOR A NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION GROUP RISKS BEING DESIGNATED AS CROSSING THE LINE, BUT LABOUR IS NO DEFENDER OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND PROTEST. Tabitha and Andy join us to discuss the decision of former defender of principled dissent Keir Starmer to ban an organisation that he might once have protected, that same MP’s determination to rob billions off the poorest to spend on pointless nuclear bomber aircraft, and self-titled “real opposition” leader Nigel Farage’s bung to rich foreigners. The post Anarchist News Review: Palestine Action Ban, Welfare Rebellion and Israel-Iran-US appeared first on Freedom News.