Under the Statue of Gandhi
Late Britain is such a dark farce, a pantomime of incoherent authoritarianism, dismal prospects and dysfunctional politics.
This week British police arrested an 83-year-old priest for holding up a sign that says, “I support Palestine Action.”
Only a handful of MPs voted in opposition to proscription.
As George Monbiot has written (‘Palestine Action isn’t a danger to British democracy – but Yvette Cooper is‘): “Yvette Cooper’s proscription of the protest group Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 is probably the most illiberal thing any home secretary has done in 30 years. If Palestine Action’s legal challenge to the order fails, you could receive 14 years in jail as a terrorist merely for expressing support.”
A year in, this is the “change” we got from Labour.
Palestine Action has now been proscribed by the UK Government and expressing support for them is a criminal offence.
This includes chanting, wearing clothing or displaying articles such as flags, signs or logos.https://t.co/D1DxB6f8Ct
— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) July 5, 2025
This hasn’t come from nowhere. Labour’s latest builds on years of repressive legislation under the Conservatives as social breakdown accelerates and the climate crisis intensifies. Yvette Cooper is merely adding to her what her Tory predecessors put in place.
It’s worth noticing the convergence of what is perceived as ‘threat’ by the British State.
One is specifically climate activism – here watch Just Stop Oil protestors being arrested – another is those of us arguing for self-determination. In an article that closely followed this one ‘Britain and the new National Conservatism’ – Neil Mackay notes that National Conservatism argues:
“One tenet reads like a thinly-veiled threat to devolution. “Subdivisions” of the nation state “in which law and justice have been manifestly corrupted, or in which lawlessness, immorality, and dissolution reign” will lead to “national government [intervening] energetically to restore order”.
This has history. Some of you will remember when Theresa May compared those who argue for self-determination for Scotland with ISIS (we covered it in 2017).
Among the reactionary and repressive new legislation of the Public Order Bill was a notion that brought together attacks on refugees and immigrants – that is the idea of a ‘British way of life’ – a vague and nebulous idea that assumes superiority and exceptionalism but defines nothing:
What is being protected here is the capitalist economic order and the British state. There is no ‘British way of life’ unless you want to refer to chronic deference and a history of violent imperialism.
As we reported back in 2020 (‘Domestic Extremist’): “You live in a state that can’t tell the difference between Extinction Rebellion and National Action, between Judi Dench and Combat 18, and thinks cyclists and vegans and peace activists are a threat to society.”
Some of the roots of the current legislation is in Counter Terrorism Policing, which has an analysis of ‘threat’ that subsumes anti-fascists with actual fascists, and CND, ‘Nuclear Power No Thanks’ and anti-GM activists with the far-right.
So what are the main threats? They are people advocating for peace and against genocide; people who are arguing against climate catastrophe; and people arguing for self-determination.
What is being defended is ‘order’ in the most general sense. In the past, the description of Britain as a ‘police state’ was used to too freely. But now the authoritarianism of the British state is advancing in leaps and bounds, before our very eyes. Our politicians did nothing. The idea that we have some protective boundary of democratic institutions shielding us from tyranny is nonsense. There are no formal constitutional checks to Britain’s descent, nor is there a culture of dissent and protest. Instead, there’s a cosy consensus and a culture not just of complacency and deference but of hostility to anyone doing anything. Did you cheer as they banged up Just Stop Oil protesters? Were you glad when Palestine Action were proscribed?
As Secure Scotland wrote: “The 2nd of June 2025 decision sets the UK ever more clearly on a doubly disastrous course involving a commitment to a murderously unethical foreign policy alongside a vicious crackdown on civil liberties.”
Coming soon, a Britcard, a new McCarthyism and thoughtcrimes. Essentially, they can name anything ‘terrorism’ and deem support for it ‘illegal’. All this under a Labour government, under the statue of Gandhi.
I’ve often thought that there would come a time when the SNP would be proscribed. I think that’s not far away. Any realistic threat to the State will be resisted with every power they have. As long as the threat is contained, the SNP is tolerated but only just. The groundwork is already being laid by hysterical right wing headlines in everyone’s line of sight, on supermarket newstands everywhere.
Yvette Cooper earlier this week was at a commemorative ceremony in recognition of Suffragettes, a group whose activities , 100 hundred years ago, would under current terrorism laws she would proscribe as she insists it is about activities not philosophy.
Similarly Keir Starmer, in his former role as a lawyer successfully defended protesters who breeched security at a UK defence establishment.
The bundling together of PA with 2 neonazi groups was a political stunt that actually showed the government were not confident of their case with regard to PA. The strategy was to tar any MP’s who opposed the proscription vote as neonazi sympathisers.
The real cause of concern here is that the current terrorist legislation is so catch all and too easy for governing parties to use to illegitamise groups that oppose them and their policies.
Late soviet Britain. Sustaining the failing revolution meant a recourse to nationalism (though not self-determination, obviously). Brezhnev in particular exemplified this, and eventually it became more and more hardline.
Sustaining the failing neoliberal revolution after George Osborne’s final throw of the dice (austerity) meant a recourse to nationalism (though not self-determination, obviously) that became more and more hardline.
I read today that a pro-Israel pressure group want Roger Waters charged for complaining about the proscribing of Palestine Action. This and the de-platforming of Kneecap and Bob Vylan show that the UK is becoming McCarthyist. And to think that the Prime Minister was once a human rights lawyer.