Rebekah Morton on a Home Secretary moving from Palestine protest in opposition to curbing rights in office
“We are now a party in government, not a party of protest.” Said Rachel Reeves at the Labour Party conference. In other words, “while we were in opposition, we were happy to allow democracy to function as usual, but now we’re in government, we’d rather you all shut up.”
The crackdown on protest rights did indeed continue, with the home secretary announcing new policies building on the 2022 “potential nuisance” definition by looking at the “cumulative impact” of repeat protests. Rachel Reeves’ words suggest that protest is something that they did in their past, but not now. This is entirely true for the new home secretary, Shabana Mahmood. In 2014, Mahmood, then a backbench Labour MP, lay on the floor in her local Sainsbury’s protesting the sale of products made in illegal Israeli settlements and spoke at a Free Palestine protest a week later. The difference between that MP and our current Home Secretary is startling, as is the difference between the Labour that supported the rights of people to protest and the Labour that seems intent on curbing them.
This crackdown doesn’t seem to be being applied equally across the protest landscape of Britain. The rhetoric at the party conference was overwhelmingly focused on the protestors who have taken to the streets against genocide and in support of Palestine. The recent far-right rally on the 13th of September didn’t make the cut for “nuisance” despite the 26 police officers who were injured on that day.
The core of this legislation isn’t new, points out Dr Richard Martin, “I think we need to be upfront about what’s prompted this. It’s not far-right rallies. The target to begin with was Extinction Rebellion, and now it’s Palestine Action”. The original target in 2022 may have been the Extinction Rebellion protests, but now it can cover most continued political protests. This is now the fourth anti-protest bill in four years. How much more will the space around our right to protest be constricted?
In the wake of the Manchester Heaton Park synagogue terror attack, Conservative and Labour leaders were quick to point the finger at pro-Palestine protests. Hate is abhorrent; a violent attack like this is sickening. But using it as a tool to stoke the flames under anti-genocide protests is wrong. Hate is the same thing no matter where it is directed. The fight against the genocide in Gaza is the same fight as for the safety of British Jews. It is against hate and violence. Tomilyn Rupert wrote a letter to the Guardian explaining his viewpoint as a British Jew standing against the Genocide, “I can’t pretend to speak for all Jews – no one can – but at many of the protests there have been Jewish voices loudly declaring “not in our name”; I hope the government will listen to us too. We must not allow the acts of a deranged few to silence the calls for humanity of many.”
The tightening of protest laws has had and will continue to have an effect on other aspects of activism. Internal emails revealed that universities in the UK agreed with arms companies that they would monitor student chat groups in response to campus protests. University campuses have always been places for free thought and fresh activism. The fact that a university would agree to monitor its own students for a private company is unprecedented. In addition to this, almost one in four UK universities launched disciplinary investigations into pro-Gaza student and staff activists (data from Liberty Investigates).
Greenpeace have started a new form of protest, having people protest in billboards to avoid arrest. The adverts that have appeared include people protesting environmental damage, plastic pollution, disability cuts and also pro-Palestine activists. This is not intended to be a long-term solution to the issue but rather a way of highlighting it, as Greenpeace seek to work against the legislation through their petition. However, if the political climate around protest continues in this direction, it is possible that we could see more examples of virtual protests in public spaces, using billboards and digital advertisements, giving a new area of protest for the government to legislate against.
The tightening of space around the right to peaceful protest has and will affect every aspect of political dissent and all forms of activism. The current legislation started as an attempt to curb climate protests and is now focused on the silencing of pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide protests, and it will move onwards to other causes in the future. The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to democracy and must be protected. But right now, as the ceasefire is worked out, we have to focus on peace in Gaza and the West Bank. We have seen the genocide unfold in real time, seen the silence from political leaders. Protesting peacefully against a genocide is the most fundamental example of the right to protest. It is standing against hate and violence in its worst form. If we cannot peacefully protest for lasting peace in Palestine and Israel, we have lost a significant moral battle as a country.