In the UK, you can be jailed for opposing genocide but not for supporting it
This is what happens when the people who commit genocide are in charge
The British government has been attacking our freedoms in recent years, particularly since October 7, and those attacks have only worsened since we got a Labour government. The most sinister strategy has been to abuse counter-terrorism laws to silence anyone who calls out Israel's genocide.
As you surely know, their latest effort in this regard is to proscribe Palestine Action, classing it as a terrorist organisation. The proscription could come into effect within a week, and would mean anyone in the UK who expresses support for Palestine Action could face up to 14 years in jail.
To be clear, you wouldn't have to express support for the illegal actions of Palestine Action, such as splashing paint. Just describing the group in a positive light or even showing solidarity with its members could mean you fall foul of the law. That's how draconian this is.
The law has been written, and is being interpreted, in such a way as to make it as broad as possible. This means any words that could be perceived to show support for a proscribed group, even if that were not your intention, could still be counted as terrorism.
Some prominent figures such as Owen Jones have recently said words which could land them in jail, were they to be repeated a week from now. It would be interesting to see what happens if such people were asked if they stand by those words and they responded "yes".
Will the government treat Owen Jones as a terrorist? Will they dare lock him up? Or will they go after low hanging fruit, the types which will not attract such a huge outcry?
My suspicion is that anyone prosecuted will be carefully selected to cause concern among the pro-Palestine movement, but not big enough to gain wider attention. The establishment will go after growing voices, rather than established ones, and hope they can spread enough fear to kill off our movement or severely limit its influence.
My advice is to not say anything that could be considered illegal, unless you are prepared to go to jail, in which case you have courage. Hell, if I didn't have kids, I wouldn't be worried about jail, but then again, if I were jailed, no one would hear my voice! We are more useful outside than in.
My advice to everyone who wants to avoid prison is do not stop advocating for Palestine and do not stop pushing back in any way you can. While nothing is risk-free, you can speak out in a way that minimises your risk of jail.
It's crazy we must consider such possibilities when we just want a genocide to end, but here we are. This is a witch hunt intended to catch as many thought criminals as possible. Anyone with a platform who is vocally opposing genocide is a threat to politicians who could find themselves wanted by the International Criminal Court.
Most of our rotten establishment is participating in this genocide so it's no surprise to see them bandying together to prosecute opponents of genocide. Just take a moment to consider how fucking sinister that is.
Almost all major protest movements in history have had a direct action component. Direct action has never been considered terrorism by anyone other than authoritarians. According to our government's standards, the Suffragettes and the civil rights movement would count as terrorism.
Protest movements resort to direct action when a government is so out of step with public opinion and basic morality that they are left with no other choice. In the case of Palestine Action, they have resorted to splashing paint on weapons that murder civilians.
Palestine Action has taken the least harmful measures it can to prevent our government from illegally arming Israel and pressure it to respect human rights.
The UK has the gall to lecture other countries on human rights. It uses human rights abuses as justification to bomb liberation into other countries. Yet in our own country, the public are not listened to when they protest and treated as terrorists when they resort to direct action. This is not democratic.
In a democracy, governments listen to the will of the people and respect human rights. In the case of the suffragettes and the civil rights movements, our governments eventually started to listen (although it took far too long). They finally conceded they had been violating human rights and grudgingly accepted the protesters were right all along.
Today, our leaders celebrate the protesters of the past as heroes, even though they broke the laws of the time. This is because with hindsight, everyone can see their law breaking was necessary. Sometimes justice can't be achieved without law breaking.
And while today, you might think it's wrong for Palestine Action to break into a military base, there is a simple solution that doesn't involve classing non-violent action as terrorism: that solution is to STOP ARMING ISRAEL. It is not unreasonable to demand that our government respects international law, is it?
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"The most sinister strategy has been to abuse counter-terrorism laws"
Abuse? Strange choice of words. The counter-terrorism laws were constructed precisely so they could be used to attack our hard-won rights, so the laws themselves were an abuse of our rights, not their use and it was all entirely predictable, indeed abuse is built-in to these laws, that's their purpose in first place.
As a former Police & Crime Commissioner I am appaled at how our civil rights have been eroded in such a short period of time whilst my ex Commissioner colleagues sit on their hands and do nothing to protect our rights against an overbearing state.