BRITAIN’S rulers are coming for our democratic rights. And their way is being prepared with a barrage of propaganda and lies.
The “counter-extremism commissioner” Robin Simcox peddles an outrageous smear against the peace movement when he claims Palestine solidarity demonstrations make London a “no-go zone for Jews.”
Tell that to the large and growing Jewish bloc that has marched for a Gaza ceasefire at every national demo.
But, as Stop the War Coalition officer John Rees warns, the ruling-class’s cynical strategy of interpreting empathy with Palestinians as hostility to Jews has sown confusion and fear.
Jewish socialists saw the funny side when police tried to separate them from a Palestine demonstration they were trying to join, seemingly unable to comprehend that people with banners declaring their Jewishness could be anything other than a counter-demonstration.
But the police assumption was as alarming as it was sad — that “the idea of Jews supporting Palestinians” is somehow wrong, as recounted for this newspaper by Julia Bard of the Jewish Socialists’ Group.
Simcox and the rest — another unelected and unqualified “expert” providing advice on these matters is ex-Labour MP John Woodcock, who wants to ban protest outside political venues and prohibit “engagement” with organisations like the Palestine Solidarity Campaign — do not care that their misinformation turns communities against each other.
They are outriders for an authoritarian government and equally authoritarian opposition, both happy to shut down democratic space to shield politicians from the people they are supposed to represent.
Simcox doesn’t just want tougher action against protesters. He wants more political censorship of information, disguised as a proposal to stop unspecified extremists running unspecified television channels.
His immediate targets are unclear, but Ofcom has already withdrawn broadcast licences from foreign-owned platforms including Russia’s RT and China’s CGTN, though when foreign governments restrict BBC access they are denounced. The dominant internet platforms have also colluded in a wave of political censorship in recent years.
The focus now is to move beyond state-aligned media to anything the government decides is extremist. In Germany, the Morning Star’s sister paper Junge Welt has already fought lengthy court battles against being defined as “extremist” by the domestic intelligence agency, on grounds including its view that capitalist societies are divided into antagonistic classes.
We must not go down this road. Britain has become much less free in the last four years, with successive Acts of Parliament gifting new powers to police to suppress protest and make arrests on the vaguest grounds.
Despite all these new powers, and a marked increase in explicitly political arrests of marchers based on the wording or imagery on placards or clothing, the number of arrests on the demos has been vanishingly small: a rate lower than at the Glastonbury music festival, as the Stop the War Coalition points out.
That’s because, far from turning London into a no-go zone for anyone, the demonstrations are peaceful and orderly.
The only people they frighten are politicians. Not because they pose any threat to their safety, despite the self-serving sob stories served up to justify blocking an SNP ceasefire motion in Parliament last month.
But because they expose the gulf between rulers and ruled — MPs who aid and abet genocide in Gaza and a people who are rightly furious at that.
All this shows the protest movement is working. It is truly global, with US President Joe Biden forced to reroute his motorcade to the Capitol for the State of the Union address on Thursday night because Palestine solidarity demonstrators had blocked the road.
Our rulers want to ban it. The last home secretary explicitly tried to, but was forced from office by the size and determination of the demos.
That remains our best defence against state repression. Until Israel’s war crimes in Gaza are brought to a halt, we continue to march, in numbers.
