Lindsey German on the Palestine movement and the new authoritarianism

The attacks on the Palestine protest on Saturday, including the arrest of the movement’s chief steward, Chris Nineham, the arrest of an estimated 77 people in total, and the questioning of left MPs, are a major attack on our civil liberties and freedom of speech. They mark a dangerous turning point which threatens the whole of the labour movement. Shamefully this is taking place under a Labour government, which is carrying out the mission set in train by Suella Braverman, when she tried to ban the Palestine march in November 2023 and was forced to retreat.

The policing of the protest has been repressive from the start. Originally agreeing to a route beginning at the BBC – whose record of bias in favour of Israel has come under increasing criticism – the police reneged on that under pressure from the Board of Jewish Deputies and other Zionist organisations who argued there should be no Palestine demonstrations within the vicinity of a synagogue on any Saturday. This thereby prohibits any demonstrations at the BBC on a Saturday.

It is an utterly spurious argument – there has never been any accusation of any attack on a synagogue associated with our marches. The route of the march never went past or near the synagogue, and the organisers’ later proposal that we reverse the route so that we would arrive later in the afternoon avoided any clashes with services. If there were serious concerns the police could have provided security at the site – instead they extended an exclusion zone to the whole of the BBC. It should go without saying, but this slur is frequently repeated, that the marches are not aimed at Jewish people, many of whom join our marches or oppose what Israel is doing.

Imagine what would be said about any country that prohibited protests outside the state broadcaster because of its support for Israel, but that is the reality about the BBC. It is also astonishing that the Metropolitan Police is pressured to ban or severely limit our demonstrations by groups of people who support a genocidal state which is the exact target of our protests.

This encroaching restrictions and criminalisation of our protests has long been the goal of the right-wing Zionists, but also successive governments, who support Israel and its supposed right to ‘defend itself’. The arrests, refusal to allow marches, and questioning of two left MPs will have been authorised at high government level. Solidarity with Palestine has spawned a huge movement which has impacted on politics. The London demonstrations have become a beacon. Labour has lost many votes over the question of Palestine and it wants desperately to end the movement.

At root this is because Palestine solidarity challenges the priority of imperialism, the closeness to US foreign policy and its alliance with Israel, and projects a different future for the Middle East. The majority of people in Britain want a ceasefire and to stop arming Israel. The ceasefire is welcome but would have happened months ago if the British and US governments hadn’t backed Netanyahu to the hilt. The government has lost the battle of public opinion so now they want to stop the movement. They will not succeed but they are aiming at central organisers and political figures.

This is not just dangerous because the attacks are totally dishonest – as the organisers have said, there was no ‘forcing through’ police lines as the police say. The policing of the demo was aggressive and arbitrary from the beginning when a number of arrests were made. I was pushed back and threatened with immediate arrest before it had even started even though I told them I was an organiser. Our statement is here and video footage backs it up. It is dangerous because this is not about just one demo or even one issue.

We are now facing attacks on the right to protest and organise that are unprecedented in recent decades. You have to go back to the 1930s – when anti fascists and other protestors were criminalised – or even to the repressive governments of the 19^th century to see parallels with it. It should be a wake up call for the whole trade union and labour movement. We have all protested in recent years at the levels of repressive legislation which have led to environment campaigners and others imprisoned for draconian terms for taking direct action.

It has become harder and harder to take democratic and peaceful action in support of any cause because of these laws and the growing authoritarianism of the supposedly liberal centre, embodied in Keir Starmer. This is at a time of record disaffection with politics, alienation from the system, and growing levels of misery and inequality.

We should not think for a moment that the police and the wider state machine will take a different attitude to other groups who challenge the government – whether strikers, unemployed, disabled or NHS campaigners. When there is no wider social consensus they have to rule by authoritarian means, and this is a feature across the supposed liberal democracies.

Starmer fears the growth of Reform, but he is preparing the way for Reform, just as Macron in France is preparing the way for Le Pen. The policies that do so – whether support for wars and genocide, attacks on working class people, scapegoating migrants or criminalising our democratic rights – must be opposed. We should demand the dropping of all charges, the reversal of prohibitions on marches, and the right to protest as central to our democratic rights and political process.

The left must come together over this both to defend those arrested and to oppose draconian laws and policing. We also need to strengthen our movement to ensure that the rights we have won in the past are not taken away from us. The best way to do that is to keep organising and protesting for what is right. And we can’t separate our concerns over a particular issue from the right to express those concerns – the two are linked.

This week: I will be campaigning with Stop the War and partners to oppose what is happening to us over Palestine and opposing Donald Trump’s new term.