BATTLE was joined to defend the right to protest today as the government launched a twin-track attack on the Palestine solidarity movement.

Top cabinet minister Michael Gove launched a mendacious smear attack on the pro-Palestine protests while Lord Walney, the government’s “independent adviser” on political disruption, published his long-trailed report full of repressive measures.

Yet even while moving to attack democratic rights, the government was handed a stinging rebuke by High Court judges who ruled today that earlier measures by the Home Office to make it easier to ban protests were unlawful.