Frank McGinnis, Barrister at Garden Court Chambers,
on Palestine Action
I have just been sent a copy of a message from Lambeth & Southwark PSC
to its members/supporters re the proscription of Palestine Action. I don’t know
whether it derives from PSC nationally but I suspect it does. It says:
" It is very important that members of the PSC and supporters of our
branch do not take any protest action in the name of the PSC, as this could
seriously jeopardise PSC's work and the movement – thank you."
This is the very
opposite of what is required. Meek compliance with the law rather than a refusal to comply with it
will guarantee that the ban on Palestine will be accepted.
Our slogan should be 'We are all
Palestine Action'. Palestine Action has been
proscribed because it is the most effective group campaigning against the
genocide. At a time of Genocide it is incumbent upon us to take risks and to
defy the government when it outlaws free speech.
When you embed a lie within the law, it renders the
law illegitimate and worthless. If thousands of people take up the cry that we
are all Palestine Action then the law will be rendered inoperable. If we meekly
comply with the law then we will do what this genocidal Labour Government wants
us to do.
There comes a time to make a stand and that time is
now. Free speech is the basis of all our democratic rights. Without it there is
no democracy.
The proposed law the dictat of an unpopular
government. It has no popular mandate and has been met with an avalanche of
opposition stretching well beyond the usual suspects. From the Chartists to the
Suffragettes to the Pentonville dockers, when the law is bad then the only way
to change it is to break it.
Instead of advocating compliance PSC should be encouraging
MPs in Parliament to say that they will declare themselves supporters of Palestine
Action in the Commons protected as they are by parliamentary privilege.
For PSC to wave the white flag now is unforgivable
and should be opposed. If thousands of us refuse to comply the law will be
rendered inoperative. When Palestinians are dying in their thousands we have to
also make sacrifices.
The time for token actions, which is the favourite
action of PSC is over. If PSC had defied the Police over the demonstration at
the BBC in January the Police's right to ban demonstrations on grounds of
'antisemitism' would have been brought into sharp relief.
There is a time for civil disobedience and the time
is now. They cannot imprison and
prosecute thousands of us.
We should ask left and socialist groups to carry
the message on the front page of their papers that ‘We Support Palestine Action’. This is a Police State Law and should
be treated as such.
The Attempt to Smear Palestine Action as Terrorists Can Be Defeated By People Declaring ‘We Are All
Palestine Action’ & Refusing to be Deterred by the Lie that
Protest=Terrorism
Sit
in at Brighton Station & Demo In Protest Against the US Strike Against
Iran's Nuclear Facilities
Last
Monday was a day of two demonstrations on two separate but interlinked issues.
At midday there was the energetic and lively demonstration against the
proscription of Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist’ group.
At
5.30 pm when back in Brighton there was firstly a sit-in at Brighton Railway
Station and then a march and demonstration against the United States attack on
Iran.I am posting videos and photos
from both demonstrations. I spoke twice at the Brighton demonstration and
sit-in.
Rally at Brighton Clocktower
Tony Greenstein Speech at Brighton's Clocktower on 23 June after a march against the Attack on Iran
Just
as in 2006 when a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah, which
Israel got Bush to arrange when Israel was getting the worst of the fight, so
too with the ceasefire that Trump arranged on
Tuesday.
The
ceasefire was clearly at Israel’s behest. Trump also came out with strident
criticism of Israel for having broken the ceasefire not understanding that in Israel’s
eyes a ceasefire means you cease and we’ll fire.
Rally at Brighton Clocktower
Demonstration Against the Proscription of Palestine Action 23 June 2025
Israel
launched the attack on Iran hoping to remove its regime and thus establish
complete dominance in the region.The
lie that Iran was developing nuclear weapons has been comprehensively
discredited by US Intelligence.
However we
should be clear. Israel and the United States attack on Iran never had anything
to do with Iran' non-existent nuclear weapons. The aim is to eliminate the
Iranian state from disrupting Israeli and US plans for the Middle East.
An extension of the Abraham Accords with Saudi Arabia at its centre.
The latest manifestation
of this is The
Abraham Shield which is Israel’s
New Blueprint for Regional Control After Gaza. The aim is the integration
of the Gulf and Arab economies with that of Israel as the latter excludes the
Palestinians, both physically and politically from having any say in their
future. It is an Orwellian nightmare of total control by Israel and the Arab
regimes of the destiny of the Arab peoples.
The
attack on Iran has been the fulfilment of a 20 year wet dream by Netanyahu. He believed
that with Trump in power that he could drag the US into the conflict. However
despite the fact that the US bombed three nuclear installations, it was clear
that the US didn’t want to get embroiled in Netanyahu’s war.
Netanyahu
was under the impression that the surprise attack on Iran would be a cakewalk.
It was anything but. Instead Iran gave Israelis a chance to experience what Palestinians
in Gaza have experienced with demolished buildings and streets and an
understanding of what war means in reality. One-third
of Tel Aviv was damaged or destroyed.
Not
since 1948 in the so-called War of Independence has Tel Aviv been bombed
(by the Egyptian airforce).If Hezbollah
had done the same when they had the chance then Israel might have thought twice
about devastating Gaza.
The Police were at their aggressive best
What
now? Israel will not give up easily having been bruised in the current
encounter. Iran will need to replenish their missile stocks and renew their air
defences as well as trying to supply their allies in the region, the so-called
Axis of Resistance, with new weaponry.
But the challenge is not only military but political and this is where the Iranian regime is fatally flawed. It is a repressive, undemocratic regime that is at odds with its own citizens. Although Iranians rallied round when Israel was attacking it, they are not going to tolerate a corrupt and dictatorial clerical state that believes in using religion to justify its attacks on women, minorities and the working class.
Rally at Brighton Clocktower
Iran suffered a great deal of damage from Israeli air attacks on its infrastructure. It is also suffering from economic sanctions and the thinly veiled hostility of neighbouring Arab regimes. Both Jordan and Saudi Arabia were involved in shooting down Iranian missiles. Qatar hosts the largest US base in the region.
Iran is unable to respond to these treacherous regimes precisely because it is not dissimilar in its contempt and repression of its own people. That is the problem for those who believe that the struggle is simply military. The Iranian regime is unable to appeal to the wider Arab populace as Egypt's President Nasser was once able to. Theocratic dictatorships are not popular, either in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Of one thing we can be sure and that is that Israel is not going to give
up and it is going to enlist the Arab regimes in its plans. The Iranian regime,
which believes it can ally with those regimes is very much mistaken if it
thinks they will help it resist US imperialism and its Israeli attack dog.
The Mullahs are incapable of a genuine anti-imperialist alliance because
that would mean allying with the very forces, the Arab street, which in Iran
would also remove its own dictatorship.
The Iranian regime is often seen as anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist.
This is a mistake. It had a golden
opportunity with its ceasefire with Israel to demand that Israel also agree to
a ceasefire and withdrawal in Gaza. I doubt if the idea even entered the head
of Khameini and Iran’s rulers.
In
Lebanon the forces of the state and the Phalangists are encircling Hezbollah
which has become very unpopular given the way they handled the confrontation
with Israel. Allowing suppliers to provide them with pagers containing
explosives without checking them raises the question as to how they were so
careless.
It
is clear that Hezbollah was penetrated from top to bottom by Zionist agents and
that Israel was in possession of real time information about the whereabouts of
Hezbollah’s leadership.
Rally at Brighton Clocktower
But
the real problem is that Hezbollah became part of the corrupt Lebanese
Establishment. It had no programme for social and political change that could
unite the different communities. It had no proposals for ending the confessional
nature of the Lebanese political system whereby a Christian becomes
President, a Sunni Prime Minister, a Shi’ite Speaker of the Parliament etc. The
128 seats in Parliament are divided equally between Muslim and Christian
despite Muslims being in a majority.
Rally at Brighton Clocktower
Changing
this was the main goal of the Lebanese National
Movement in the civil war of the 1970s. A civil war which saw Syria’s Assad
intervene on the side of the Phalangists.
MSNBC on Donald Trump and his Lies About 'Obliterating' Iran's Nuclear Sites
Netanyahu
succeeded in his aim in that the US bombed Iran's 3 nuclear sites last
weekend. Unfortunately for Trump, despite his boasts that
he had obliteratedthe facilities it is clear that the MOABs did not do the job as the
facilities were too well protected.
The Familiar Face of Alexei Sayle
However
the present ceasefire is not designed to last and we can be sure that Israel will
be plotting with the traitorous Arab regimes, not least those of Jordan and Saudi
Arabia how to renew the conflict.
It
now seems that a desperate Israeli military has taken to threatening
Iranian officials and their families: rebel or we’ll kill you
The guy on the right was the speaker before me
"WE ARE ALL PAL ACTION"
Meanwhile
at home Palestine Action is due to be proscribed despite massive opposition to
Starmer’s giant step towards a police state. It is clear to most people that
the terrorists are the genocidaires not those who oppose them.
Even
that beacon of fair-weather liberal opinion, The Guardian, has come out strongly against the proposals of
Starmer and Cooper with its legal correspondent Haroon Sidique saying it would
have a ‘chilling effect’
on other protest groups, which of course was the whole purpose.
Its leading
article asked ‘if red paint is
terrorism, what isn’t?’ begging the question as to why the Guardian backed
Police State Starmer and the ‘feminist’ Yvette Cooper against Jeremy Corbyn in
the first place.
The war of this miserable
‘Labour’ government against our democratic rights, coupled with their attacks
on the disabled and working class people shows that it is nothing but a
continuation of the Tories. Labour is preparing the way for Nigel Farage’s
far-right racist Reform.
These Are The Values Of Starmer
& Yvette Cooper – Palestine Action Are No More Terrorists Than Were The
French Resistance
Frank Magennis, Barrister at Garden Court Chambers, on Palestine Action
We are not walking but running into a Police State
as Starmer and Cooper have decided
to make War Crimes legal and opposition to them a criminal offence.
It is not unknown for imperialist countries to
define their opponents as ‘terrorists’. The British did that constantly in the British
Empire, The Nazis branded the French and Polish Resistance as bandits or
terrorists. Starmer and Yvette Cooper are following a well-worn path. As Lord
Carrington, a former Foreign Secretary noted, ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.’
The Zionists have been calling for months for Palestine
Action to be proscribed as ‘domestic terrorists’ and Luke Akehurst’s We Believe in Israel has been particularly
active in calling for a ban. Akehurst’s group has been give access to Police
and Intelligence information as the state seeks to clamp down on anything that
effectively challenges the Zionists and Palestine Action certainly does that.
The racist Commissioner of the Met Doesn't Even Pretend to Political Neutrality
Since being formed three years ago Palestine Action has
been responsible
for the shutting down
of three Elbit factories and the Israeli Embassy has attempted
to influence the decisions of the Crown Prosecution Service and the Attorney-General’s
office in relation to prosecutions.
James Schneider on BBC Question Time on Why Palestine Action
Should Not Be Proscribed
The
move is a further escalation of Starmer's war on opponents of genocide and journalists.
The government is actively colluding
with Israel to abuse
anti-terror laws, with potential prison sentences of up to fourteen years,
against those who speak out for Palestinian lives and human rights and against
Israel's mass slaughter of almost 400,000 innocent civilians.
In
essence opponents of the Government’s foreign policy of support for Israeli war
crimes are now being prosecuted as terrorists. Some PA activists such as the Filton 18have been held
in prison for more than a year before they even come to trial, as the
government tries to 'make the process the punishment.
movement. Peaceful direct action has been historically important in shaping the UK. Here is Yvette cooper recognising that by wearing the colours of those suffragettes.
The
comparisons between the Suffragettes, a cause that Starmer’s bitch Yvette
Cooper purports to support and Palestine Action are remarkable.
During
their trials, suffragettes—especially those affiliated with the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)—were
frequently treated harshly by British judges and authorities. While the language
varied, judges framed the suffragettes
as criminals, rather than legitimate political activists.
1.
Criminal, Not Political
Judges
and prosecutors consistently emphasized
that suffragette actions were criminal offences, not political protests.
Their acts—such as window smashing, arson, or disrupting government
meetings—were treated under criminal law, with no recognition of their
political motives.
A common
judicial attitude was: “You are not political prisoners; you are ordinary
criminals.”
2.
“Terrorist” Comparisons
While the
term "terrorist"
wasn’t widely used in the modern sense at the time, some authorities did
suggest that the WSPU’s militant
tactics resembled political violence or even domestic terrorism. Prime
Minister H.H. Asquith and others in government expressed concern that
suffragette acts (like bombing empty buildings or attacking artwork) were
dangerous and extreme.
·Media and political
opponents occasionally described the suffragettes as
hysterical, dangerous, or subversive—language that echoed contemporary fears of
anarchism or extremism.
3. Moral
Condemnation
Judges
often spoke to suffragettes with condescension
or scorn, labeling them as irrational, overly emotional, or misguided.
Women were frequently told that their actions were unfeminine or disgraceful.
Emmeline
Pankhurst, was told that she was “a woman
of great ability but misguided zeal,”. Mr Justice Phillimoreadded:
“Although your motives... are not the selfish
motives which actuate most persons… the crime… is in fact a wicked one… it might have exposed
other people to the danger of being maimed or even killed… whatever you may
think, it is a wicked one… The sentence must be a severe one… three years’
penal servitude.”
Mr
Justice Madden sentencing Mary Leigh after
the Theatre Royal arson attempt (Aug 8, 1912) said:
“These crimes will cease when
they get the vote… If they don’t get it, what are to be the consequences? Crime, crime
Madden
framed suffrage agitation as a path to lawlessness.
There is
an excellent
article in The Guardian by Sally Rooney and surprisingly, there was a brilliant
article by Andy Twelves in the Express of all papers.Which is much like the Morning Star praising
Margaret Thatcher. Wonders never cease.
Ordinary
people understand what Starmer and Cooper are doing, which is to attack the
most basic rights of protest against the criminality by our war criminal rulers.
We need
to build a strong civil rights movement that makes the proscription of Palestine
Action unenforceable. We need public declarations by thousands of people that
they support Palestine Action and its destruction of Elbit and the military
equipment that kills thousands of people and a demand that Keir Starmer be prosecuted
under the International
Criminal Court Act 2001 for aiding and supporting the commission of war
crimes by Israel.
If the
proscription goes ahead we need a petition supporting Palestine Action by thousands
of people and dare the filth and scum in government to prosecute us.
Things You Can Do
You can sign a petition
protesting the government’s action here.
You can sign a petition
calling for David
Lammy to resign
for
his complicity in war crimes and lying to the British public.
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