In the UK, you can be arrested for "terrorism" saying you disagree with a government decision

At an anti-genocide protest, a woman was arrested by the Metropolitan Police for holding up a sign reading: “I do not support the proscription of Palestine Action.”

The police crackdown on peaceful protest is so out of control that a total of 488 protesters were arrested on Saturday alone. Police are so overwhelmed by their own authoritarianism, they’re begging organisers to stop protesting because they don’t have the personnel to arrest everyone.

Protest organisers Defend Our Juries simply said “stop arresting us then”. It is such a simple request and so reasonable. Democracies don’t arrest peaceful protesters.

Clearly, the UK isn’t much of a democracy because police have been arresting people for supporting Palestine Action under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Now they are going a step further. Now they are saying you are not even allowed to disagree with the proscription.

If you disagree with the decision to label a group that has never carried out an act of terrorism and has never planned to carry out an act of terrorism as a “terrorist group”, you too are a terrorist.

It’s kind’a like when the bullies at school called someone “gay” and if you objected to their bullying, they called you gay too. Only this isn’t just childish bigotry, it’s authoritarianism.

An arrest for terrorism can impact your ability to work and travel, even if you are not convicted. This explains why so many of the protesters are pensioners. Younger protesters pay too high a price in our so-called democracy.

I’m not as brave as these protesters so, for legal reasons, I must say that Yvette Cooper’s decision to brand the grandmas and wheelchair users “terrorists” was a brilliant idea. Let’s take away their bus passes and winter fuel allowance and disability badges and incapacity benefits.

Hang on, I think we’ve already done all that. Fuck it, let’s just jail them for life. In fact, bring back hanging. They are terrorists after all...

In all seriousness, just stop and think about where this could lead. Today you can’t disagree with a proscription, tomorrow it could be a conviction. Say someone is jailed for terrorism and you believe they are innocent: we are one step away from you being banned from expressing that opinion. A country that does not allow you to disagree with decisions is a country where justice becomes impossible.

Clearly, the British government is determined to erase our civil liberties to protect itself and Israel from accountability. Shabana Mahmoud’s latest terrifying decree is: “Just because you have a freedom, doesn’t mean you have to use it at every moment of every day”.

Mahmoud is talking about our right to peacefully protest. She plans to amend Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act so police can stop protests or move them out of sight, the moment they become effective. There are a bunch of incredibly obvious problems here:

First of all, no one is protesting “every minute of every day”, but it wouldn’t matter if they were. In a free society, you can dissent as much as you like. If the government limits how much you can dissent, it is not a freedom, it is an allowance. If the government says you can only protest in a limited manner that makes protest ineffective, you do not have the right to protest.

Mahmoud’s rationale for her authoritarian crackdown is that our protests against genocide have been upsetting to supporters of genocide. I wish I was joking, but that is literally her rationale. She doesn’t say “supporters of genocide” of course, she says “Jewish communities”, but that is worse because it means she is conflating Jews with support for genocide.

Jews who oppose the genocide are not opposing the protests. Jews and non-Jews who support the genocide, oppose the protests. These protests are in no way directed at Jews, and Mahmoud is not protecting Jews; she is protecting herself and her allies.

By conflating Jews with genocide and arguing Jewishness is incompatible with our right to protest, Mahmoud is the one who is endangering British Jews. Her words are incredibly irresponsible.

Mahmoud is framing the protests as an intimidation tactic to spread fear among communities, but that is patently nonsense. Does this guy look intimidating to you?

The protests are being held by the most thoroughly decent and harmless people and they are aimed at the British and Israeli governments. Mahmoud really wants you to believe Grantifa is a sinister organisation funded by Iran or something. It’s fucking batshit.

Just imagine what this government will be like when they introduce digital IDs. It’s a matter of time until we are given a daily social media quota. Exceed your Twitter allowance and it’s no more shit posting for you. Mention the word “genocide” and it will be logged with police as a hate crime.

If they can say protests are making genocide supporters unsafe, they can use that argument for social media posts. They can use that argument for any objection to genocide. This is 100% a thing this government would do. For evidence, I would point to literally everything they’ve done over the past year.

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