Arresting Vicars for Vigils: Britain’s Descent into Authoritarian Absurdity

When did Britain decide that sitting quietly in Trafalgar Square, eyes closed in vigil, constitutes terrorism?

On a Saturday that should have occasioned national reflection on the limits of state power, nearly 500 people were arrested in central London for the newly invented crime of holding cardboard signs. Their offence, in the eyes of the Metropolitan Police and His Majesty’s Government, was supporting Palestine Action, a direct-action group proscribed under anti-terrorism legislation in July. Not for plotting violence. Not for stockpiling weapons. But for damaging military aircraft destined for use in what the world’s leading association of genocide scholars has determined meets the legal definition of genocide in Gaza.

Let us be clear about what unfolded. A vicar, sitting peacefully with a placard reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” was carried away by five officers whilst onlookers called the scene “shameful.” Amnesty International UK declared these arrests a breach of the UK’s international human rights obligations. And all of this occurred whilst Sir Keir Starmer, once a human rights barrister, urged protesters to “respect the grief of British Jews” following the horrific synagogue attack in Manchester.

Here we encounter the cynical machinery of the modern British state in full operation. Of course we grieve for Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, murdered by a man consumed by hatred. Of course every synagogue deserves protection, every Jewish person the right to worship without fear. But the government’s logic, echoed by certain community leaders, constructs a false binary: that one cannot simultaneously mourn victims of antisemitic terror whilst protesting the systematic destruction of Gaza.

Zoe Cohen, a Jewish member of Defend Our Juries, demolished this fabrication with admirable clarity. She grieves for the synagogue victims and for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians murdered, displaced, and starved. “I think it’s possible for us to be compassionate and open our hearts to victims of multiple atrocities at one time,” she said. Quite so. The human heart, unlike government policy, is capacious enough for universal solidarity.

The timing argument, wielded like a cudgel by ministers and police, reveals the authoritarian sleight of hand at work. When, precisely, would be the “appropriate” moment to protest genocide? After the bombs stop falling? After every Palestinian child has been named? The Israeli war machine does not pause for British sensitivities. It continues its work, day after day, with weapons and diplomatic cover provided by this very government. To demand silence from protesters whilst remaining complicit in the supply chain of slaughter is not compassion. It is complicity dressed in the language of respect.

Palestine Action damaged military aircraft at an RAF base. This is, undeniably, criminal damage. It should be prosecuted as criminal damage. Instead, the government has deployed terrorism legislation, the bluntest instrument in the authoritarian toolkit, to criminalise not just the group’s actions but any expression of support for their cause. Thousands arrested for holding signs. A vicar carried away for silent vigil. This is not counter-terrorism. This is thought-policing.

The Metropolitan Police diverted 1,500 officers to Trafalgar Square, each arrest requiring five officers because protesters chose passive resistance. Meanwhile, the Community Security Trust rightly noted the need for protecting synagogues. But here is the rub: these are not competing priorities created by protesters. They are competing priorities created by a government that has chosen to treat peaceful dissent as terrorism, thereby manufacturing a crisis that consumes vast police resources that could indeed protect vulnerable communities.

Dave Rich of the CST called the protests “phenomenally tone deaf” for supporting “a proscribed terrorist organisation, which is not the same thing as supporting the Palestinians.” But this is precisely the category error the proscription creates. Palestine Action engages in property damage against military infrastructure. Whatever one thinks of their tactics, equating this with organisations that murder civilians is a grotesque distortion. The proscription conflates the two deliberately, making it illegal to distinguish between them.

The British state has form here. Throughout history, from the Suffragettes to the anti-Apartheid movement, direct action against property has been reclassified as extremism by those who benefit from the status quo. The Suffragettes were force-fed. Anti-Apartheid protesters were arrested. History vindicated them both. I am not claiming Palestine Action will necessarily be vindicated, but the pattern should disturb anyone who values civil liberties. Today it is Palestine Action. Tomorrow it might be climate activists. Next week, trade unionists. The precedent, once set, becomes available for any government seeking to silence dissent.

Some will argue that the rule of law demands compliance with proscription, however unjust. But the rule of law is not synonymous with blind obedience. When Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, she broke the law. When the Kindertransport volunteers smuggled Jewish children from Nazi Germany, they broke immigration law. Sometimes, the moral law supersedes the statute book. And when a government makes it illegal to oppose genocide, peaceful people must decide whether their conscience or their compliance matters more.

The Israeli government consistently denies its actions constitute genocide, yet the International Court of Justice has ruled it must prevent genocidal acts, and the world’s foremost genocide scholars have reached their conclusion. We are not speaking of contested traffic regulations. We are speaking of the possible extermination of a people, broadcast in real time, with British weapons and British diplomatic cover. If this does not warrant mass civil disobedience, what does?

The Labour government, which once positioned itself as the party of human rights, has embraced a position indistinguishable from its Conservative predecessors. Starmer’s plea for protesters to “respect grief” might carry weight if his government showed equal respect for the grief of Palestinian mothers, fathers, and children. But there is no such respect. There is only the maintenance of the special relationship with a state credibly accused of genocide, and the deployment of terrorism laws against those who say so out loud.

What we witnessed in Trafalgar Square was not law enforcement. It was state intimidation. The British government, having failed to justify the proscription of Palestine Action through argument, resorts to the logic of all failing authorities: shut them up, lock them up, and hope the problem disappears. It will not. For every person arrested, ten more will question why their government criminalises opposition to mass killing whilst arming those who perpetrate it.

The path forward is clear. Parliament must revoke the proscription of Palestine Action immediately. The thousands arrested for peaceful protest must have their records expunged. The government must end all arms sales to Israel until it complies with international humanitarian law. And most fundamentally, we must reassert the principle that in a democracy, the state serves the people, not the other way around. If the price of opposing genocide is arrest, then our democracy has already failed.

A nation that arrests vicars for silent vigils whilst supplying the instruments of mass death has lost its moral compass. If we cannot find our way back, we deserve neither the respect of the world nor the admiration of history. The question is not whether these protesters were tone deaf. The question is whether the rest of us have gone completely deaf to the screams coming from Gaza.

When your government makes it illegal to oppose genocide, the only moral response is lawful defiance.

Paul Knaggs

Editor, founder, Labour Heartlands, Citizen journalist. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Fighting a constant struggle with dyslexia that’s overcome with a burning desire to speak out against the corrupt political system and the social injustices it creates. Advocate for Free speech and open, accountable, democracy. #GTTO