Police Fail to Arrest Two-Thirds in Biggest-Ever Protest Against Palestine Action Ban

An estimated 1,500 people in London have taken part in one of the largest acts of mass civil disobedience in British history to protest the ban on Palestine Action. The Metropolitan police arrested just over half of them*, in what has been described as a “huge embarrassment” for commissioner Sir Mark Rowley. 

At 1pm on Saturday, more than 1,300 protesters, the majority of them over 60 and some visibly disabled, sat down in Parliament Square in London and wrote “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine action” on cardboard signs. By 9:15pm, the Met said officers had managed to arrest “more than 425” and called its operational plans “effective” – despite having failed to arrest everyone, as it had claimed it would.

Later on Sunday afternoon, the Met said it had arrested 857 people for supporting a proscribed organisation, with 890 arrests in total. 33 were for assaults on police officers and other public order offences.*

As the day unfolded, there was a sense of complete calm among the mostly elderly people taking part in the demonstration, organised by Defend Our Juries (DoJ) to protest the controversial proscription of non-violent direct action group Palestine Action. 

Protesters were seated peacefully and quietly on the floor, some in camping chairs, from before 1pm to well into the night. Novara Media documented police tactics of 20 plus officers moving in squadrons to arrest a single elderly person. The arrests happened one by one at a slow pace and continued for over eight hours. 

By 6pm, the Met said 150 people had been arrested. The arrests included Steve, a disabled RAF veteran using a walker, Mike Higgins, a 62-year-old blind and disabled man who was previously arrested on 9 August, an NHS midwife, a retired doctor in her 80s, two mental health nurses and 83-year-old Anglican priest Reverend Sue Parfitt.

When making arrests, officers were surrounded by members of the public** shouting “shame on the Met police” and asking them how they felt about arresting elderly people. As one elderly man was taken away, a bystander shouted: “That could be your grandfather.” 

Partfitt was arrested on Saturday night after sitting with her sign for more than six hours. She had previously been arrested at the first-ever protest against proscription on 5 July, the day the ban came into effect, and said she was aware of breaching her bail conditions. 

“We might be getting nearer to the goal,” Parfitt told Novara Media, “which is to get Palestine Action not proscribed as a terrorist organisation – because it isn’t a terrorist organisation. And that’s a good signal to our brothers and sisters who are suffering so terribly in Gaza and Palestine… I want to be sure I am absolutely on their side.”  

Actions also took place in Belfast and Edinburgh and were designed to pose an “unprecedented simultaneous challenge to all three legal systems within the UK’s constitutional framework”, according to DoJ organisers.

In a statement released before the protest, the Met police claimed the force had the “officer numbers, custody capacity and all other resources” necessary to arrest everyone. However, this did not take place. The Met was forced to backtrack on similar claims last month, speaking of the “entirely unrealistic” challenges it faced in enforcing the Palestine Action ban.

At around 8:30pm on Saturday, a DoJ spokesperson said: “This is a huge embarrassment for Sir Mark Rowley, who claimed the Met would arrest every person who held a sign saying ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’. They have failed to arrest the majority of sign holders and it’s no wonder – there are simply too many people who oppose this utterly dystopian ban and the government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide to arrest us all.”

An officer told Novara Media that anyone holding a sign breaking the proscription could simply put it away and leave. People were not searched on the way out, no kettle was in place and protesters were witnessed walking away with their signs in full view. 

Deputy assistant commissioner Claire Smart, who led Saturday’s policing operation, said: “In carrying out their duties today, our officers have been punched, kicked, spat on and had objects thrown at them by protesters. It is intolerable that those whose job it is to enforce the law and keep people safe – in this case, arresting individuals committing offences under the Terrorism Act – should be subject to this level of abuse.”

A DoJ spokesperson called the Met’s claims of violent abuse “frankly laughable” and accused them of failing to provide evidence. The Press Association reported that “officers drew their batons during clashes, forced their way through crowds carrying arrested protesters and had screaming arguments with demonstrators”. A Mirror affiliate news sites reporter said she and her partner were “aggressively grabbed, shoved, smacked and shouted at in a very dehumanising way” by police.

One protester was pictured on the floor with blood streaming down his face while officers were seen behaving violently – one was filmed punching through the crowd. 

The Metropolitan Police has been approached for comment. 

Several elderly women ranging in age from 66 to 78 told Novara Media that they felt a “duty” as the older generation to put themselves on the line in Saturday’s action. Veteran peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Angie Zelter, 74, told Novara Media that she thought the police were “just hoping we all go away – but most of us are quite old and we’re determined to stay… to put pressure on this government to stop aiding and abetting genocide”. 

Zelter said footage of elderly people being dragged away shows the public that “there’s something very broken about our society”. She added that the government “should’ve been closing down these factories” in reference to the Israeli weapons factories targeted by Palestine Action. 

Protesters were joined by a coalition of major civil society organisations, including Black Lives Matter UK, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition, acting as witnesses to policing. 

Bob, a 71-year-old retiree and Quaker wearing a pinstripe suit, told Novara Media that he was there to protest the “inappropriate” and “unjustified” application of the Terrorism Act and said “Palestine Action is not a terrorism organisation”. He said he’d chosen to dress so smartly to show he was taking the event seriously and that his presence was “deliberate” and “measured”. 

This is the fifth high-profile action in London opposing the proscription of Palestine Action since the group was banned under terror law in July. 

A Metropolitan Police officer told Novara Media that enforcing the ban on Palestine Action made them feel “sick” and “ashamed”, while a Police Federation spokesperson highlighted the risk of burnout for officers, saying they are “emotionally and physically exhausted” and the demand is “relentless” and “not sustainable”. 

Prior to Saturday’s protest, at least 700 people had been arrested and around 70 charged for peacefully holding signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” at previous Lift the Ban protests on 5 July, 12 July, 20 July and 9 August.

On 9 August, some officers appeared overwhelmed and one described the day as “carnage”. Afterwards, a Met spokesperson said the force faced “entirely unrealistic” challenges in policing the protest.

The government’s controversial decision to proscribe Palestine Action makes it the first non-violent organisation ever to be banned under the Terrorism Act 2000, and puts Palestine Action in the same category as Al Qaeda and ISIS. Being a member of or showing support for Palestine Action could now carry a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.

Earlier in the week, police arrested seven key DoJ spokespeople in dawn raids across the country – including former government lawyer and DoJ co-founder Tim Crossland – in connection to the hosting of public Zoom calls providing legal briefings. 

Six spokespeople were held for over 24 hours after they were arrested and their homes raided – more than the custody time limit. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) requested they were remanded to prison, but a judge rejected this and granted them bail with a tagged curfew. 

All seven have now been released after being charged with a mixture of section 12(2) and 12(3) of the Terrorism Act. Six spokespeople are facing 42 charges between them, and another spokesperson in Scotland is facing one charge under the Terrorism Act.  

A DoJ spokesperson said: “Yvette Cooper has launched the biggest attack on our civil liberties in living memory and it’s backfired spectacularly. Now Yvette Cooper is no longer home secretary, the ban must go with her. This shows the new home secretary on her first day in office that the Palestine Action ban is impossible to enforce and a preposterous waste of resources. 

“The terrorism laws were not designed to be wielded against a domestic protest group, or to arrest thousands across civil society for holding cardboard signs.”

*Correction: Updated on Sunday 7 September at 14:03 to reflect the new number of arrests – 890 in total – according to the Metropolitan Police.
**Correction: Updated on Sunday 7 September at 15:30 to correct misstated “legal observers” to members of the public.