Palestine Action judge's insane suffragette claim

Her claim about the suffragettes insults our history

Earlier this year, the high court ruled that the government’s banning of anti-genocide direct action group Palestine Action using anti-terror legislation was unlawful.

That has now been overturned by the Court of Appeal, who have ruled that the government’s ban is lawful. That means expressing support for Palestine Action can lead to a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Palestine Action focused its actions against Israeli weapons firm Elbit, in the context of the British government facilitating Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. Their proscription puts them on the same legal footing as ISIS and al-Qaeda.

Thousands have been arrested for holding placards. As a result, as the i paper’s security correspondent Lizzie Dearden notes: “The average terror suspect arrested in England and Wales is now a white woman in her 50s as a result of the Palestine Action ban.”

But I want to focus on comments made by the lady chief justice, Sue Carr, as she read the judgment. She said:

It is not, as it claims, a direct action civil disobedience protest group like the suffragettes operating transparently in the open. It is a covert organisation that operates using secret cells to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy the property of third parties. Palestine Action’s activities have caused injury as well as property damage.

What the hell is this judge talking about?

For a start, the suffragettes engaged in far more extreme acts than Palestine Action. The anti-genocide activists have smashed up the equipment of an Israeli weapons’ factory and thrown red paint at two RAF planes. One person has been convicted of GBH without intent after an altercation with a police officer.

The suffragettes planted bombs, burned down residential homes, attacked churches and schools and smashed up art galleries. Between 1913 and 1914, they were responsible for more than 300 incidents of arson and bombing.

They killed at least four people!

By any sane measure the suffragettes engaged in far more extreme acts than Palestine Action. Indeed their actions would unequivocally be criminalised as terrorism today.

If the distinction is based on being covert or transparent, then it is as pedantic as it is ludicrous. Yes, the Women’s Social and Political Union ran a public-facing campaign, employed staff, organised huge demonstrations, and printed a weekly newspaper.

But when they were carrying out acts of sabotage or indeed violence, they were clearly not “operating transparently in the open”. They did so in secrecy, and many of the perpetrators were not caught.

The WPSU even had a secret group called the Young Hot Bloods which organised arson attacks, acid bombs, and attacks on homes.

Academic researchers who studied the suffragettes concluded that they became more covert in their final phase, meeting “the definitional criteria of what we call a ‘covert social movement network’ (CSMN).”

Palestine Action was a public-facing campaign with a website, social media accounts, press releases and a membership. It had two identifiable co-founders, Huda Amoori and Richard Barnard, who did public media interventions.

The lady chief justice has desecrated our history - and erased the truth about activists who fought for the rights of women like herself.

The proscription of Palestine Action is a sordid episode in our history, and marks our continued march towards authoritarianism. It is obvious what a Reform government would do with the repressive legal precedents and infrastructure it would inherit.

But we should note that. Proscribing dissident groups as terrorists is one hallmark of authoritarianism. Another feature is rewriting our past.