Am I overthinking things? Wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve heard Owen Jones, George Galloway, Kernow Damo – even Andrew Neil FFS! – voice disgust at the arrest of a blind disabled man. My step-daughter, a criminal law solicitor, phoned Sunday morning to check I’d made it back OK from the day before – then asked in incredulous tones why the police had made so many ‘bad optics’ arrests.
They couldn’t arrest us all, I replied. My sense on the day, reinforced by subsequent corporate and social media footage, is that faced with so large a presence – at least 800 of us – they were making arbitrarily selected, eeny meeny miny mo, busts. But why the blind man in a wheelchair? Why the vicars and Quakers, the retired head teacher, the former magistrate, the army colonel? Why Moazzam Begg – let that one sink in for a moment – and so many elderly and infirm?
I floated the idea they chose these to send a message to us all. “See? None of you are immune”.
But what if the message was not to us but to the government which has saddled them with with so unenviable and unachievable a task? 1 I can’t track this down now but one Police Federation (cops’ union) spokesman speaking anonymously questioned on practical grounds the wisdom of listing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation …
… while Crispin Flintoff, below in the best live-at-the-scene commentary I’ve viewed, says this at 16:58-18:44:
I don’t understand what the police strategy was because … a guy who was arrested was released almost instantly. His bail condition was that he wasn’t allowed to protest on behalf of Palestine Action again, but that was it, right? I don’t think they even took him to a police station. So what were the police doing?
… Was it – as I hope – to prove that this is unenforceable, that you cannot arrest 500 people right? Did the police choose not to enforce it? That was my feeling. Maybe the police wanted to tell the politicians: you’ve given us a law we can’t enforce.
What neither Crispin nor anyone else knew at the time is that the police would go on to make an all time record number of arrests: greater than in any of Britain’s many urban riots; greater than those which brought down Mrs Thatcher over her detested poll tax. But while his counts proved wildly premature, his underlying hypothesis shouldn’t be dismissed. It wouldn’t be the first time a jaded workforce applied reductio absurdum in action, sabotaging employer intent by carrying out orders to the letter with wilful disregard for the consequences. Could Starmer and his home secretary – both struggling on so many fronts, both recipients of Lobby largesse 2 – really have wanted millions of British households viewing on their screens a self-evidently peaceful protest leading to an army of uniformed bobbies bundling the coffin dodger and the wheelchaired into marked vans in front of the Mother of Parliaments?
Just asking. 3
* * *
- The message needs to go out loud and clear for the next mass protest that we should all go floppy: not resist, but not co-operate either. Those who got to their feet the moment they were asked – understandably enough, these being hardly your seasoned criminals – to be led away by one or two cops to a waiting van, freed up other police to make further arrests and enable a higher tally. Those who laid out floppy, by contrast, needed four or five officers to carry them, and others to clear a path through the crowds chanting “shame on you”. Since the name of the game is to make an unjust law unworkable, let’s hope this conclusion will be widely drawn and heeded next time.
- Palestine Action co-founder Huda Amorri has won the right to challenge the legality of banning her non violent direct action group. In an appeal to be heard in November, one of her arguments is that the government consulted groups known for Israeli sympathies – including Israel owned Elbit Systems, which on British soil manufactures weapons used in the genocide – but not one human rights organisation, far less Palestine Action.
- It seems I may be guilty of (unconscious) plagiarism. Just had indignant email from elder daughter re
myher it’s-the-cops-wot-want-the-ban-lifted thesis:Hey, it was ME who suggested that! The idea didn’t seem to have occurred to you until I threw it out there. You thought it was a chilling way for the police to signal that the law is the law and they will target anyone, with the intention of deterring potential protectors.
I don’t discount the latter either, Annie. Interesting times.
In regard to footnote 1.:
Running with the premise being put forward, another even more ‘helpful’ approach would be to adopt a policy of ‘one arrested, all arrested’.
Instead of trying to prevent the police from separating the elderly, blind, infirm and others from the body of the crowd by arresting them one by one, as soon as someone is arrested the entire assembly give themselves up and voluntarily fill the police vans (occupy them) en masse to leave the police with the practical problem of processing so many people at once.
An additional collective refusal of on the spot bail conditions not to attend further protests by so many people at once would place a considerable strain on the system, as it would require further processing and other associated facilities along with the personnel required to carry that processing out. Particularly if everyone slow timed the process.
Such an approach would, if adopted, have to be disciplined and well-organised.
Just sayin’ as Mr Mercouris likes to observe.
It was also, recall, a line much favoured by Sarah Palin when she ran against Obama with the late and unlamented John McCain. Probably still is.
Just saying …
Phil, the same thing did occur to me, taking out those who are least likely to disrupt employers, also least likely to fight back so no extra charges. Marion.
glad you passed as under 50, well done!
Tee hee
I think you and your elder daughter, Phil, are definitely on to something re police motives. Certainly, they’ve given the ‘optics’ some thought on this occasion. E.g. I heard a police spokesperson saying the Met decided not to wear riot gear. And were instructed they had a Duty of Care to those they arrested,( first time I’ve heard that mentioned!) esp given they now expect a large cohort of older people to be on such protests.
My wild guess is that, as with all the other things they’ve had to u-turn on, the Government may now be putting pressure on whoever the judge is who’s reviewing the proscription of PA to bring the date forward from November for the case to be heard . With some big back channel hint about actually lifting the ban. ( Or however these things get arranged) Because if the Government just keeps on doubling down……..
You surely aren’t suggesting the much vaunted separation of the executive from the judiciary arms of state to be a lie on matters vital to the latter … ?
If you have not already done so you might want to pop over to Craig Murray’s site *
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/08/yvette-cooper-is-lying/
” In fact there is nothing whatsoever in the JTAC assessment which backs up any of the claims being put out in a panic by government ministers.
The JTAC report makes absolutely clear that its assessment of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation is based only on the definition in the Terrorism Act, of a group that commits serious damage to property in order to influence government policy.
I pause here to note that the United Nations has intervened in the case to state that this does not meet international standards for defining terrorism. Damage to property should only be terrorism when the intent is to endanger life, such as damaging an air traffic control centre.
The JTAC report in fact notes that Palestine Action stresses its philosophy of non-violent action against people. Much is however made of one single attack (out of 385) where substantial violence against persons is alleged (though hotly denied).
But even here the JTAC report notes that the sledgehammer and axe were intended for use against machinery, an obvious fact.”
* Picked this up on Skwakwbox…..
https://skwawkbox.org/2025/08/13/jtac-intelligence-group-report-proves-cooper-is-lying-about-palestine-action/
…. which has no hesitation in concluding:
“Yvette Cooper has repeatedly lied about Palestine Action in an attempt to justify her decision to ‘proscribe’ (ban as a terrorist organisation’ the anti-genocide direct action protest group Palestine Action at the (boasted) behest of pro-Israel lobby groups. Journalist and former ambassador Craig Murray has obtained a declassified version of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) report on Palestine Action and its activities – and it acts as a ‘smoking gun’ nailing Cooper’s lies.”