law-abiding britons are arrested en masse by the police of a state actively and variously complicit in the world’s first live-streamed genocide. their crime? the newly created one of holding placards expressing support for a non violent direct action group seeking to uphold international law
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“Those who feel the breath of sadness, sit down next to me” – James
Sunday: 2am. Dog tired, I’ll keep this brief. Yesterday afternoon as Big Ben struck one, I sat in baking heat on the grass at Parliament Square, London, with my homemade placard. Advised not to bring a smart phone, I’d no way of taking a selfie but can be seen at lower left corner of frame: 09:29 to 09:36 below …
… while here, in a Morrison’s car park on my way home, is my placard: message identical to that of a thousand others seated beside me.
That shot was taken in Northampton, close enough to the M1 to pull off for a bite to eat before motoring on.
I don’t anticipate no graphic design award.
Earlier I’d emailed friends:
Not busted. Cops did random arrests, some directly behind me, but I was not chosen for that honour. I say that without a trace of irony.
Thank you, all of you, for your messages of support, practical advice and even an offer to drive my van home if need be.
Just had a shower at London Gateway Services, prior to leisurely cruise home.
Phil x
We’d been asked by organisers Defend Our Juries to sit in silence, eyes lowered as in a vigil, but in the event the protest was far noisier though non violent. We were all of us Spartacus, most of us disgusted of middle England, and few of us ever arrested before.
I say, “eyes lowered” but I did look up from time to time. Heartening to see so many – Defend Our Juries said close to a thousand – holding up the same message. An elderly Palestinian zig-zagged among us, taking cell phone shots and blowing kisses, her etched face its own picture.
Another Palestinian, young and pretty, moved in similar fashion with a basket of long stem roses she threw out at us like a diva in some tragic opera.
Didn’t get one myself but nor did I get my collar felt. For now at least, though cop teams moved methodically in and around to take photos. Will these be digitally cross-checked with DVLA and passport records for facial matches?
At 13:45, three quarters through our protest, I heard female cops directly behind, politely making an arrest. I assumed I’d be next. I wasn’t. When the clock struck two we got to our feet, our own cheers and waves and hand clapping amplified by those of many hundreds of onlookers.
I’d registered on arrival the size of the police presence, but not till late evening would I learn the numbers arrested.
Since fewer were arrested than not, I guess our numbers exceeded the thousand stated. Then again, media-reported figures of 150-200 mid afternoon had climbed by that evening to a shade below 500, so either there were on-site arrests after 14:00 or, ominously, some were made after photo recognition along the lines of my previous remark …
… else Busted of Tunbridge Wells had published their “confessions” as I’m doing now. Yesterday a friend in Caledonia emailed in reply to my own as featured earlier:
I have to confess I’m relieved you weren’t arrested. I think your blog is too important to be interrupted. Though of course you had to do it. On our Saturday vigil outside our wee Burgh Hall we all,held signs supporting Palestine Action and no one took any notice!
Re her second sentence, I have to confess the same thought crossed my mind too. Still does – we should all play to our strengths – but some things you can’t let pass.
Re her fourth and final, turning a blind eye, I doubt that anyone junior to Sir Mark Rowley – who replaced the exotically named Cressida Dick as Met. Police Commissioner after her 2022 forced resignation over failure to root out rapist cops on her watch – had that option. Ours was a direct and well advertised challenge to an unjust law, and to Friend of Israel Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. The hallowed principle of separation of the executive, legislative and judiciary arms of state has always been a fiction on matters of vital interest – witness Tony Blair shutting down a Serious Fraud Office investigation into British arms manufacturers bribing Saudi buyers, or the conflict of interests in the slow torture judicial process, aborted only after he’d been broken and a clear message sent, of extraditing Julian.
Best part? As Big Ben chimed the hour and we all stood up – me already figuring where I could take a much needed leak – a thirty-something Palestinian came to thank me; her smile radiantly tearful.
On Parliament Street vans ferrying the arrested were turning into King Charles Street, a barrier at the junction raised then lowered for each. I joined the throngs alternating chants at the cops – “shame on you!” – with roars of applause for the “criminals” inside.
A hundred metres on, where Downing and Parliament Streets meet, I met with a living tsunami of those who’d just done the Palestine march: same route as the one I’ve covered before. I sure could have done with my camera. The crowds were bigger than on any of the London marches I’ve been on, which puts them at well over half a million. Pushing my way through against the tide, while speaker after high octane speaker told the red, black, green and white assembled why they’d turned out, took the best part of an hour. They were still teeming down the Strand, taking up its entire width in tens of thousands as I dodged and pushed and side-stepped past Trafalgar Square to head up Charing Cross Road for a No. 24 to Camden Town, then a 134 for Muswell Hill.
There I retrieved the van key I’d secreted, not wanting to get busted with it – though my burner held the solicitors’ number we’d been told to ring if arrested, and I was primed to no comment all the way – before hitting the road.
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Good morning Phil,
SO proud of you!
Take extra care of yourself.
Cheers
Billy
Cheers 2u2 Billy!
I wish I were as brave as you, but I’m not and my conscience goes unassuaged.
Thank you for what you did.
Best regards,
Susan
Honestly Susan it didn’t really take much courage. I was more impressed with the young ‘uns – more of them than I’d expected – for whom a criminal record and potential career loss have vastly greater intimidatory power.
It was never likely the police would charge those arrested under Section 12, the offence of encouraging others to join an organisation listed as terrorist. That allows house raids with no warrant, and years of jail time. But it gives the option of trial by jury, clogging up the judiciary with the likelihood of a successful conviction diminishing by the day. The less draconian Section 13 offence of publicly supporting a proscribed group – 6 months max and no automatic power of house raids – is the more likely, which is why we all stuck to signs in the first person, “I support …”
Best to you too!
I just find it so impossible to wrap my head around how we have become, in essence, a fascist minded state.
When exactly, did the British people agree to such “Spetsnaz” tactics?
It’s no wonder so many people are now leaving the US and the UK, many of whom are off to Russia!
It doesn’t require you to break the law these days so please try and refrain from getting yourself nicked.
Empire criminality overseas has a way of coming back to the imperial hub. This is what I had in mind in my previous post:
I have to say I breathed a sigh of relief when seeing this post. I have to echo that too I think you blog posts important and would miss them. Even if we might disagree on whether the BBC or Guardian are the worst(better?) propagandists. Well done and keep posting.
Why thank you sir! Much appreciated…
Welcome back.
Anything Ursula can do, Kier can do better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx3OdMEaKYk&ab_channel=TheJimmyDoreShow
Priceless!
I second all the above. Well done Phil. I support Palestine Action.
Aw shucks Jams ….
Yes, Welcome Back Phil! And many thanks, not only for your description of the PA demonstration. But also of the significantly massive size of the Palestine Solidarity march you encountered after. Which has merited only a line or two in mainstream media as far as I can see. But, e.g.if Sheffield’s anything to go by, I suspect other local rallies and demonstrations for Palestine are also getting much larger.
You mention young people, Phil. and it’s undoubtedly true they were taking a very big risk re their future lives and livelihoods at Saturday’s pro-Palestine Action event. . But I’ve also been very much cheered by news of the no. of over-sixties who got arrested. Some of whom will remember what you were still ‘allowed’ to chant at Vietnam War demostrations. Or that even under the Tories in the 80s, Greenham Women accused of damaging US bases and aricraft were then enabled to make speeches that convinced juries to pronounce ‘not guilty’ on the grounds that their actions were justified because they were aimed at preventing a much worse crime.
What is particularly sinister about the present Govenment’s stance, is not only the hardly-veiled assumption that people, particuarly the older ones, who declare support for Palestine Action are naive and duped. But also the suggestion that there are things that the Home Secretary knows about PA’s ‘real’motives that can’t be revealed ‘for state security reasons’……
There was much talk about all this at yesterday’s S Yorks Festival which also attracted a much larger crowd this year of young and old political activists and trade unionists. Sorry not to see you there this time, Phil. But hope you were enjoying a well-deserved R and R day safely back home.
Two observations occur:
“the hardly-veiled assumption that people, particularly the older ones, who declare support for Palestine Action are naive and duped.”
It would be interesting to see that slur applied to this seventy five-year-old retired army Colonel arrested on Saturday along with his placard.
https://skwawkbox.org/2025/08/11/exclusive-retd-army-col-chris-romberg-descendant-of-holocaust-survivors-on-genocide-and-starmer-regime/
Given that what is taking place in Gaza is being classified as a ‘War’*, perhaps he should have just given his name, rank and number and demanded to be treated as a PoW?
“the suggestion that there are things that the Home Secretary knows about PA’s ‘real’motives that can’t be revealed ‘for state security reasons’”
Apart from the problem highlighted by Craig Murray in his reporting of the PA’S MOST RECENT appeal, this information being heard behind closed doors in secret session with nothing being allowed to be seen by the defence (putting them at a disadvantage), there exists the further problematic issue of credibility.
With a record longer than the equator of politicians using such “security information” in this way which has turned out to be a tissue of downright lies – from the non-existent WMD’s in Iraq through to the BS about chemical weapons allegedly used by the former legitimate Government of Syria; and not forgetting the fantastical narrative of Salisbury** – one would have to be either a complete rogue or a complete and utter fool to give any credence or credibility to such obvious self-serving drivel from the political and media classes.
* From my recollection of the Geneva Convention and Rules of conflict lecture we had in September 1972 at Helles Barracks, Catterick Garrison, the portrayal of what is going on in Gaza as a “War” does not match the designation of Hamas as a ‘terrorist’ entity.
If they are a “terrorist” entity, they are, if memory serves, illegal combatants. A designation which the USA used to ship Iraqi’s and Afghanistani’s (among others) to Guantánamo. In which case, it cannot be classified as a “War” – particularly when the majority of victims are civilian non-participants. Simply because logically you cannot have a “War” in which only one side is designated as a legal combatant which, for its own convenience, also classifies civilians right down to babes in the womb as combatants and therefore “legitimate” targets.
If it is a “War” than not only are war crimes being carried out, but also the other side cannot be designated as “terrorists” – ie “illegal combatants”. But, when did logic ever apply when talking about the selective application of the Western based “Rules Based Order”?
** We are asked to accept the narrative that:
A. a nerve agent said to be many times more lethal than, say Sarin – which we were taught both in basic and subsequent working unit training and when I was a test subject (guinea pig) at Porton Down – was fatal within seven (7) seconds on contact with exposed skin or inhalation, was released in pure form in an area crowded with civilians and no one died.
and
B. That this alleged lethal nerve agent survived in pure form against all known physical and chemical laws with no deterioration in purity levels arising from its exposure to the environment (snow, sleet, rain, ice, wind & so on) for over a week or more to be conveniently found to be present by inspectors from the relevant International Regulatory Agency.
Me too. While I question the motives of mainstream voices hitherto insistent on the ethno-state’s “right to self defence”, but now changing their tune somewhat, they’ve shifted the Overton Window.
I hear Mandy Rice-Davies: well she would say that, wouldn’t she? And it’s time corporate journalists stopped letting Yvette Cooper get away with sweeping statements – “PA isn’t at all non violent, you know” – whose lack of instantiation she can’t even pretend to be on security grounds.
I didn’t know the S. Yorks Festival was last weekend. I’d have gone! Though tired, I had that speediness you get after little sleep. These days it’s the day after the day after that gets me. And such fine weather you had too …
Stay well Ros.
As I marched with a friend on the PSC march from Russell Square to Whitehall on Saturday, I kept thinking of you and the others, braver than me, sitting in Parliament Square. I was glad to hear that you got home safely and will be continuing your blog. It’s a go-to for me every day Phil.
I can’t begin to convey my disgust for Cooper, Starmer, Tammy, Reynolds, Nandy, Rayner and all the “lesser” others who voted for prescription of PA. I am especially disgusted by those who posed in Suffragette memorabilia not long before their vote. The lack of awareness is mind-boggling.
Yeah, me too Geoff. And thanks for your kind words.