Is Yvette Cooper a terrorist organisation?
Keir Starmer and the Westminster cabal have voted to proscribe Palestine Action as a "terrorist organisation", categorising the non-violent Palestine solidarity group alongside Al-Qaida and ISIS!
Keir Starmer and the Westminster cabal have voted to proscribe Palestine Action as a "terrorist organisation", categorising the non-violent Palestine solidarity group alongside Al-Qaida, ISIS, and violent extreme-right hate groups like National Action.
It’s clearly an abuse of anti-terrorism legislation to use it to ban and criminalise non-violent protesters because the political class disagree with their cause of disrupting the arms supply chains to a brutal army of occupation that is committing genocide.
The United Nations have condemned the move, led by Starmer’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, stating that "acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism".
The UN experts added that "protest actions that are not genuinely ‘terrorist’, but which involve alleged property damage, should be properly investigated as ordinary crimes or other security offences".
They also warned that draconian terrorism sentences of up to 14 years for things like membership of the group, inviting support for it, arranging a meeting in support of it, or publicly wearing clothing or carrying articles associated with the group "would criminalise legitimate activities by innocent members of the group that do not contribute in any way to property damage by other members, let alone 'terrorism' which, if properly defined, the group has not committed".
Using anti-terrorism legislation as an excuse to ban an inconvenient protest group that is interfering in Britain’s complicity with the Israeli genocide in Gaza is quite obviously an abuse of process, but it’s also damaging to the legitimate fight against real terrorism.
If people can be labelled "terrorists" for stuff like smashing the windows of an Israeli weapons factory, or spraying a bit of red paint on an aeroplane, then the concept of terrorism itself is severely undermined.
'We don’t like it so it’s terrorism' is a dangerous and frightening precedent for any government to be setting.
Surely nobody in their right mind believes that vandalism of property for a cause should carry the same weight of punishment as plotting and/or executing terrorist atrocities like the 7/7 London bombings, the Manchester Arena atrocity, or the Neo-Nazis who have just been found guilty of plotting terror attacks on Mosques and Synagogues?
This vote also creates an absurd juxtaposition.
In Gaza the savage Israeli regime has killed tens of thousands of civilians; deliberately targeted journalists, medics, academics, and aid workers; used food deliveries as bait to massacre civilians with machine guns and grenades; destroyed dozens of hospitals and countless schools, mosques, churches, universities, civilian buildings, and sites of cultural and archaeological interest; and got caught red-handed massacring aid workers and burying their bodies alongside their crushed ambulances. They’ve also used terror tactics (booby trapped devices, car bombs, attacks on civilian infrastructure …) against neighbouring countries like Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.
The UK government doesn’t just fail to recognise Israel as the terrorist state that it is, they’re committed to remaining complicit with Israel’s terrorism and genocide by continuing to supply them weapons, and continuing to provide logistical and diplomatic support.
Meanwhile they’re proscribing the non-violent Palestine Action group as terrorists for their activism against Israel’s terrorism and genocide!
This utter hypocrisy from Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper, and the Westminster cabal is already backfiring though, through the birth of a new Palestine Solidarity activist group calling themselves "Yvette Cooper"
If Starmer’s mob want to keep misusing anti-terrorism legislation to proscribe Palestine solidarity tactics, now they’re going to have to legislate to designate "Yvette Cooper" a terrorist organisation too!
Parliament has likely just voted for something that is not only morally indefensible, but potentially unlawful—something that may well be overturned in court. The decision to proscribe Palestine Action under anti-terror legislation represents one of the most blatant abuses of such laws in recent memory.
Despite the seriousness of this move, only 26 MPs voted against it. Disturbingly, many who are considered part of the Labour ‘left’ supported the proscription—including Momentum-backed MPs Navendu Mishra and Chris Webb—while others abstained entirely.
Among those who stood in opposition were:
• 9 Labour MPs: Diane Abbott, Tahir Ali, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain, Kim Johnson, Clive Lewis, Grahame Morris, and Nadia Whittome.
• 3 suspended Labour MPs: Apsana Begum, John McDonnell, and Zarah Sultana.
• 3 Independent Alliance MPs: Shockat Adam, Jeremy Corbyn, and Adnan Hussain.
• 4 Green MPs: Sian Berry, Ellie Chowns, Carla Denyer, and Adrian Ramsay.
Some have claimed they couldn’t vote against the motion because of the inclusion of other groups, hastily bundled into the proscription order by Yvette Cooper. That’s no excuse. Like any parliamentary motion, if you object to any part of it, you vote against it.
This is a shameful moment for the Labour Party—a capitulation to tabloid-style, Trumpian politics at the expense of legal integrity and basic human rights. This isn’t about ideology. It’s about defending the rule of law and the right to dissent.
Petition to support PA
https://palestinecampaign.eaction.org.uk/NoProscription
I queried the safety of signing this, although i have signed it. Will I be somehow incriminated for doing so? A friend informed me:
"The Govt Security Agencies monitor all extra parliamentary ( and much of Parliamentary ) opposition routinely. The Starmer led Labour Party HQ hired an IDF Intelligence Officer within weeks of gaining power. He is an expert at using IT to monitor Social Media. So my response to this is to do nothing , say nothing, that is illegal but proudly be open about resisting the erosion of hard-won liberties that we benefit from thanks to generations of good people taking direct action. You're already on the lists bud. But until the Bill is past signing [it] is not illegal. Regarding the murderous IDF there is no legal right for an Occupying force to claim self-defence and there is a legally sanctioned obligation for an occupied population to use force against the invading military. But of course all of that will be familiar to you and your parents. All the best."