Met Police Hire Bus to Help With Mass Arrest of Elderly People Holding Signs

Police hired a private bus to help cart away scores of peaceful protesters defying the ban on Palestine Action outside the US embassy in London on Saturday. 

Around 400 people – many of them elderly – held signs expressing support for the proscribed group at the rally, which aimed to draw attention to Donald Trump’s alleged role in the ban.

Despite bringing dozens of police vans to the protest, officers also used a privately hired vehicle from Kent-based bus operator GoBus to transport arrestees.

“There were so many people defying the ban they had to bring in a bus to take more people to the police station – something we’ve never seen before,” a spokesperson for protest organisers Defend Our Juries (DOJ) said. 

Some protesters sang the nursery rhyme the Wheels on the Bus as police carried people into the vehicle.

The Metropolitan police said Saturday evening that at least 139 people had been arrested and arrests were still ongoing. 

The DOJ spokesperson said that, as a result of Saturday’s demonstration, the total number of people arrested for supporting Palestine Action since July 2025 has exceeded 4,000.

One woman was arrested Saturday for holding a placard repeating the words of writer Sarah Helm, the wife of national security advisor Jonathan Powell. Helm wrote, “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action” in a post on X on 15 October. 

Two days later, the Met said the post “did not meet the criminal threshold” – and yet on Saturday its officers arrested a protester for using the same phrase, except that the word “authors” had been substituted for “retirees”.    

Police made no arrests at a simultaneous protest outside the US consulate in Edinburgh.

The DOJ spokesperson said these inconsistencies in the policing of the two protests made a “mockery” of the ban: “You can be arrested for defying it in England but not Scotland.” 

“How can Andy Burnham possibly justify arrests today for holding up words which, just weeks ago, were deemed to be below the criminal threshold when expressed by the wife of his own national security advisor?” the group added in a statement. “This makes a further mockery of the proscription, which becomes more impossible to sustain by the day.”

Activists at both protests said Trump had played a role in the proscription of Palestine Action in the UK. The US president is suspected of pressuring then prime minister Keir Starmer to ban the group after its activists painted the words “Gaza is not 4 sale” on the lawn of his golf course in Turnberry, Scotland in March last year.

“The government was wrong to equate throwing paint on a golf course with dropping bombs,” retired financial advisor Marji Mansfield, 78, told Novara Media. “It’s Halloween and this is a complete horror story – what Trump wants is dictating policy in the UK.”

In a March Truth Social post, Trump claimed prime minister Keir Starmer had informed him the UK “caught the terrorists who attacked the beautiful Turnberry”. 

“That’s why all this is happening – because the mad emperor is upset because his golf course has been sprayed,” Tim Crosland, a former government lawyer and DOJ co-founder, told Novara Media. 

Ahead of Saturday’s demonstration, police had threatened to arrest not just people expressing support for Palestine Action but anyone providing them with “logistical support”.  

Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has argued that the ban on Palestine Action followed democratic process and was “endorsed by Parliament”. That claim is weakened by allegations of a foreign president’s involvement, Crosland said. 

An appeal to overturn the ban is due to begin on 4 November at the Supreme Court. 

This August, Trump imposed sanctions on Palestine Action in the US, with the Department of the Treasury labelling it a “transnational terrorist group”. 

As a result, the group’s co-founder Huda Ammori was blocked from raising funds to challenge the group’s proscription. 

“As a Palestinian and Iraqi, the fact the country which destroyed both my homelands is calling me a terrorist is beyond hypocritical,” Ammori said at the time. 

Retired professor Tony Booth, 81, said the ban was “the wildest piece of legislation I’ve ever seen in my lifetime”. Recalling his five previous arrests for supporting the group, the pensioner said officers often seemed “a bit apologetic”.

“They’re arresting some old bloke, they know I’m not a terrorist,” he said. 

Since October 2023, the US has sent at least $25.5bn worth of military assistance to Israel.

Novara Media contacted GoBus to ask if it was aware the police planned to use its vehicle to detain protesters. The company had not replied at the time of publication.