MPs' 'hypocrisy' blasted as Suffragettes celebrated while Palestine Action banned
The photograph featured top politicians including Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Deputy Speaker Caroline Noakes, and Home Office Minister Angela Eagle.
It came on the same day that Palestine Action was proscribed under the Terrorism Act for their campaign to put pressure on the UK Government and private companies for complicity in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Independent MP Zarah Sultana (below), currently suspended from Labour, posted the picture to social media, saying it was 'Parliament in a nutshell'.
(Image: PA)
She added: 'Yesterday MPs, including Yvette Cooper, celebrated the suffragette legacy of civil disobedience that won women the right to vote. Only to then vote to designate non-violent direct action group Palestine Action as terrorists.
"Westminster is broken.'
MPs voted to ban Palestine Action by 385 votes to 26, with the Greens, Independent Alliance MPs, and nine Labour MPs voting against. The SNP and the LibDems abstained.
READ MORE: Rachel Reeves breaks silence on tears in the House of Commons
It means that it will become a criminal offence to express support for or be a member of Palestine Action, carrying a prison sentence of up to 14 years in jail.
Wearing clothing which expresses support of the group, such as T-shirts with the group's branding, can result in a six-month prison sentence and/or a fine of up to £5000.
Others called out MPs for expressing their support for the Suffragettes, who were persecuted in their own time for their campaign to win votes for women.
Green co-leader Carla Denyer (above) said: 'Today women MPs wore Suffragette sashes to celebrate Votes for Women – won by civil disobedience and celebrated in Parliament's gift shop.
'And yet now the government is asking us to vote to proscribe Palestine Action – a modern civil disobedience group – as terrorists.'
Novara Media editor Aaron Bastani added: 'The Suffragettes literally blew up David Lloyd George's house, as it was under construction, in Surrey.
'The same politicians now celebrating that think you should get six months in prison for wearing a Palestine Action t-shirt.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South Wales Argus
2 hours ago
- South Wales Argus
Keir Starmer 'must be living in cuckoo land' says reader
He says he is 'as proud as hell' of Labour's first year in office. He must be living in cuckoo land. Labour has trashed the economy, reneged on every election pledge, apart from his comment about Welsh Labour. He said the way Labour has run Wales is a blueprint for how they will run the UK. Well, Labour in Wales has spent 25 years running the country into the ground. Spending billions on worthless schemes and plans, just one example buying Cardiff Airport, spending expected to be by 2030, nearly £400million. Labour has patiently proved they cannot run the Welsh economy, so far, buying Cardiff Airport was an insane idea. Since 2013, over £180 million of taxpayers' money spent on it, with a current loss of £61million. If this was a private organisation, they would have gone into receivership. Labour's Senedd leaders since 2013 should hold their heads in shame. R Brafing, Wales
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Asylum seekers are using taxpayer handouts to fund their gambling habits: More than 6,000 migrants used government-issued cards loaded with £50 a week at betting shops and casinos in past year
Asylum seekers are using taxpayer handouts to fund their gambling habits. Pre-paid cards given out to pay for basics including food and clothing are being used in gambling venues such as bookmakers, amusement arcades and even casinos, Home Office data shows. In the last year, up to 6,537 asylum seekers have used the government-issued cards at least once for gambling. The shock figures were released under freedom of information laws to the PoliticsHome website. Last night they triggered calls for an immediate clampdown to prevent the abuse of taxpayers' money by asylum seekers, including many who entered the country illegally. The Home Office last night launched an inquiry into the scandal. A Home Office spokesman said: 'The Home Office have begun an investigation into the use of Aspen cards. 'The Home Office has a legal obligation to support asylum seekers, including any dependants, who would otherwise be destitute.' Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp described the 'shocking' figures as 'an insult to taxpayers'. 'These people have illegally entered this country without needing to – France is safe and no one needs to flee from there,' he said. 'The British taxpayer has put them up in hotels and now they slap us in the face by using the money they are given to fund gambling. These illegal immigrants clearly don't need the money they are given if they are squandering it at casinos and arcades. 'Labour has lost control of our borders with record numbers for illegal immigrants crossing the Channel this year. The number in asylum hotels has gone up since the election and now we learn of this insult to British taxpayers. 'Everyone illegally crossing the Channel should be immediately removed to their country of origin or a safe third country in order to deter these crossings.' So-called Aspen cards are issued to asylum seekers while they wait to have their claims dealt with – a process that can take months, or even years. Those in self-catered accommodation receive £49.18 on the card each week to pay for 'clothes and footwear, non-prescription medicines, travel, food, non-alcoholic drinks, toiletries, laundry, toilet paper and communications'. The cards are currently issued to around 80,000 individuals who are waiting for a decision on whether they have a valid claim to stay in the UK. Many are living in hotels at the taxpayers' expense. The Home Office is able to track where the cards are used but does not block payments for particular types of transaction. The figures reveal that significant numbers of asylum seekers are now using the cards to gamble. The Home Office figures break down how many asylum seekers attempted to use their cards in gambling venues each week. They do not record how many times each individual attempted to use their card in that week. They show that an average of 125 asylum seekers a week used their cards with 'gambling-related merchants'. Dozens used the cards every week, with 177 using them to gamble in Christmas week when many venues are closed. The figures peaked at 227 in one week at the end of November last year. The Aspen cards use a chip and pin system so cannot be used for contactless payments or online. A Home Office source insisted it was 'not possible' to use the cards to directly place a bet. However, the data is understood to include withdrawals made from cash machines inside venues such as amusement arcades and casinos – where gambling is the sole focus. Paul Bristow, Tory mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, suggested gambling by asylum seekers at the taxpayers' expense may even be fuelling the growth of the industry. He told PoliticsHome: 'Peterborough has seen a huge increase in the number of gambling establishments and gaming centres, and a huge increase in men who've arrived on small boats. 'It's not unusual to see the very same men in some of the establishments on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. There's something going on here. Questions need to be asked. It would be absolutely wrong if they were using money given to them by British taxpayers to waste on gambling.' Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice said: 'This revelation, coupled with migrants working illegally, shows that the Home Office is incapable of policing the illegal migrant population. This is a slap in the face to hardworking British taxpayers who are struggling to make ends meet.' The revelations are likely to fuel concerns about the explosion in small boat crossings under Labour. Around 20,000 people crossed the Channel illegally in the first half of this year – a rise of 50 per cent on the previous year. Public anger is already mounting over the policy of accommodating tens of thousands of asylum seekers in hotels across the country, with angry protests erupting in recent days in Epping, in Essex, Diss in Norfolk and Canary Wharf, in London. The Aspen cards were introduced to provide basic subsistence for asylum seekers who are not legally allowed to work or claim benefits in most cases. But ministers are increasingly concerned at evidence of illegal working by asylum seekers, which may allow some to treat their taxpayer-funded handouts as pin money. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has ordered a clampdown on illegal working this week following a string of reports about asylum seekers earning money in the gig economy with delivery firms such as Deliveroo and Just Eat. In some cases, delivery bikes bearing the firms' logos have been seen parked outside asylum hotels. Firms will be issued with data on the locations of asylum hotels and ordered to stop using workers who appear to have been operating from there. But experts question whether this will work. Emma Brooksbank, immigration partner at law firm Freeths, said the plan was likely to prove ineffective. 'It will not be difficult for illegal workers to bypass this restriction and avoid detection. Companies like these gig economy operators are largely unregulated, and as such the usual right to work penalties of £60,000 per illegal worker do not apply. They have no real incentive to clean up their act.'
Spectator
4 hours ago
- Spectator
Portrait of the week: Epping protests, votes at 16 and Ozzy Osbourne dies
Home Six people were arrested during a protest by 1,000 outside the Bell hotel in Epping, Essex, which houses asylum seekers; an asylum seeker had earlier been charged with sexual assaults in the town. The Conservative leader of the council said: 'It's a powder keg now.' The number of migrants arriving in England in small boats in the seven days to 21 July was 1,030. The Lionesses, the England women's football team, decided not to take the knee before winning their semi-final Euro game, after a player, Jess Carter, had been inundated with racist abuse on social media during the tournament. The Chief Constable of Northumbria Police ordered the removal of Pride rainbows and transgender livery from police cars after a judge ruled it was unlawful for her force to have taken part in uniform in a Pride march last year. At the next general election, 16-year-olds will be able to vote, the government said. Diane Abbott had the Labour whip removed again, pending an investigation into an interview she gave to James Naughtie, in which she said: 'It's silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.' Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, earlier suspended the Labour whip from four MPs – Rachael Maskell, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman and Chris Hinchliff – who were accused by government sources of 'persistent knobheadery' and were among 47 who voted against the welfare bill. Sir James Cleverly became shadow housing secretary in a reshuffle. Hospital consultants were told by the British Medical Association to charge £6,000 for being on call this weekend when resident (junior) doctors are on strike. The government announced it would abolish Ofwat in response to a 464-page report by the Independent Water Commission headed by Sir Jon Cunliffe, who said that water bills would rise by 30 per cent over five years. Government borrowing jumped to £20.7 billion last month, £6.6 billion higher than in June last year. British manufacturers' sales fell by £14.5 billion last year to £452 billion. Unemployment for the three months to May rose to 4.7 per cent, from 4.6 per cent in the three months to April. Brewdog was to close ten of its 71 bars in the UK. The train operator c2c, which runs services between Fenchurch Street and Shoeburyness, was nationalised. Britain and Germany agreed to create a direct rail link between London and Berlin under the so-called Treaty of Kensington signed at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Andrew Saint, the former editor of the monumental Survey of London, died aged 78. Ozzy Osbourne, the frontman of Black Sabbath, died aged 76. Sir Roger Norrington, the conductor, died aged 91. Abroad Britain signed a statement with 26 other countries saying: 'The war in Gaza must end now.' It declared: 'The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity', adding: 'The hostages cruelly held captive by Hamas… continue to suffer terribly.' Israel launched a ground and air assault on Deir al-Balah in Gaza. The UN World Food Programme said a food convoy in northern Gaza 'encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire', after crossing the border from Israel. At least 80 died, according to the Hamas-run ministry of health. (Journalists are not allowed into Gaza.) Israel said it 'deeply regrets' a strike on Gaza's only Catholic church, Holy Family, which killed three people. Israel struck the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus in actions to defend Druze in the south of Syria. Bedouin fighters retreated from Suweida to surrounding villages and Syrian government forces guarded the road into the city, where Druze had been killed by government and Bedouin forces. The number of Druze and Bedouin deaths exceeded 1,100. China began work on the world's largest hydroelectric dam, on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet. A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia caused Moscow's four major airports to be temporarily closed. A Bangladeshi air force training jet crashed into a school in Dhaka, killing 19. In elections, Japan's ruling coalition lost its majority in the upper house as well as the lower. President Donald Trump sued the Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, for at least $10 billion, over its report that his name was on a lewd birthday note for Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 that contained a reference to secrets they shared. Connie Francis, whose hits included 'Lipstick on Your Collar', died aged 87. CSH
