Residents of Portsmouth South and members of the Portsmouth Resistance Collective have picketed the office of Stephen Morgan MP, with placards reading ‘Don’t Proscribe Palestine Action’, ‘Stop the RAF Spy Flights for Israel’, and ‘We Are All Palestine Action’.
The protest took place just hours before MPs voted on whether or not campaign group Palestine Action is to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, with the government apparently hoping to have the ban in place by July 4th. MPs voted 381 to 28 in favour of proscribing the nonviolent group, with both Portsmouth MPs – Stephen Morgan and Amanda Martin – voting in favour.
If proscribed later this week, the group would be placed on a par with armed groups such as al-Qaeda or Isis, and it would become a criminal offence to be part of or solicit support for Palestine Action, with penalties including up to 14 years in prison and fines, according to the Terrorism Act (2000).
Palestine Action, launched in 2020, is a group that describes its objective as ‘ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime’. The group uses disruptive tactics and direct action to target ‘corporate enablers’ of this regime, for example internationally owned weapons manufacturers such as Elbit Systems, Thales, and Teledyne, and British facilities linked to these companies.
The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced her intention to proscribe the group after Palestine Action activists broke into RAF Brize Norton earlier in June and spray-painted two planes. They targeted Brize Norton as flights leave there daily ‘for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, a base used for military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East’. The activists damaged Airbus Voyager aircraft, which carry military cargo and refuel fighter jets and military planes for Israel.
The Home Secretary’s announcement has been very controversial, with several politicians, the United Nations, high profile celebrities, Human Rights organisations and NGOs pointing out that peaceful protest and direct action have a long and important history of bringing about social change for the better in the UK.
Kerry Thackaberry, Portsmouth South constituent and spokesperson for Portsmouth Resistance Collective said: ‘For 20 months we’ve witnessed Israel commit atrocities against Palestinians – acts of genocide streamed in real time across social media. While the UK government shields Israel’s reputation instead of defending Palestinian lives, it has fallen to ordinary people to act – through boycotts, protests and direct action – to stop this needless violence.
‘The move to proscribe a nonviolent direct action group is a chilling abuse of state power and a grave attack on civil liberties in Britain. It’s staggering hypocrisy from a government that today celebrates the Suffragettes – who used militant tactics in their fight for justice – while proscribing nonviolent protest in support of Palestinian freedom.
‘I am outraged that Stephen Morgan has chosen to support this authoritarian proscription order.’
Similarly, in a statement posted on their X profile last week Palestine Action wrote: ‘The real crime here is not red paint being sprayed on these warplanes, but the war crimes that have been enabled with those planes because of the UK government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.’
It is worthy of note that in 2003 Keir Starmer defended protestors who broke into an RAF base to Stop US bombers from heading to Iraq. Several political commentators have highlighted the hypocrisy of this reaction and his current, contrasting reaction, in which he described Palestine Action’s protest as ‘vandalism’ and ‘disgraceful’.
Picture courtesy of Portsmouth Resistance Collective.
