Green Party peer says she will vote against proscribing Palestine Action
During a talk at Glastonbury Festival's Speakers Forum with Palestine Action activist Francesca Nadin, Baroness Jenny Jones said people inside the Lords had told her she 'should not be sharing a platform' with the group, but she added she was 'proud' to be with them.
It comes after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she would proscribe Palestine Action and would lay an order before Parliament in the coming days to make membership and support for them illegal, after a number of the group's members vandalised two planes at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
Following the talk, Baroness Jones told the PA news agency: 'I've worked on policing issues, civil liberties and protests for more than 25 years, and I know very clearly, very well, that what the Government is doing to Palestine Action is not a legal act.
'They are not a terrorist organisation and, to be honest, if the Government proscribes them, there's going to be an outcry.
'Presumably, the legislation will come to the House of Lords, and I will definitely vote against it.
'It is bizarre, because it almost looks as if the Government is frightened of protest. I mean, that's something that I've seen with the Conservative government, but now with the Labour Government, we're seeing it as well.
'They actually don't like opposition of any sort, and that's not democracy, and what they are planning to do is not democratic.'
The 75-year-old said the group, along with fellow activist organisation Youth Demand, 'represent an energy and a future that quite honestly is beyond me at the moment', adding she was 'furious' with the Government during the talk.
She told PA: 'If some of us in the House of Lords vote against proscribing Palestine Action, will that make us liable for prosecution in some way or another?
'They've got a huge number of supporters, 250,000 at least, and I'm sure this particular action by the Government will give them even more supporters.
'The Government is going to find it very difficult to suppress the protest.'
Baroness Jones spoke as Irish rap trio Kneecap, who have seen one of their members charged with a terror offence, prepare to perform on the West Holts Stage at 4pm on Saturday.
Before the festival, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it would not be 'appropriate' for them to perform their slot at Worthy Farm.
Rapper Liam Og O hAnnaidh was charged for allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah at a gig in London in November last year.
Last week, the 27-year-old, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was cheered by hundreds of supporters as he arrived with bandmates Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh at Westminster Magistrates' Court in 'Free Mo Chara' T-shirts.
He was released on unconditional bail until his next hearing at the same court on August 20.
On Thursday evening, the rap trio posted a film to social media, titled Stop The Genocide, which includes testimonies from a Palestinian activist and plastic surgeon on the war in Gaza.
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Telegraph
20 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Palestine Action are not terrorists. The RAF is just grossly incompetent
One can see why the Government is proposing to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. That anyone could enter the RAF base at Brize Norton, one of the most significant we have, and smear red paint on planes was deeply humiliating. Once, the commanding officer of the base would have resigned immediately; the security officer would have been moved to the cookhouse, if he was lucky; and the Defence Secretary would have offered his resignation. But no-one resigns these days, so branding the intruders 'terrorists', as if they were some ruthless group trained to outwit military professionals, with death and destruction their aim, makes them sound all the more formidable, and their victims all the more helpless. It is an unconvincing cover for the sort of grotesque incompetence that characterises our public sector and public services. That was the RAF; the next day it was the Metropolitan Police unable to prevent an epidemic of daylight robbery on the streets of the West End; the next NHS maternity services that humiliate and degrade women giving birth. What Palestine Action, however organised and bonkers and loathsome they are, did was not terrorism: it was vandalism. You might as well call football hooligans terrorists, or the groups of louts who on hot summer evenings riot because they are bored and the police upset them by seeking to restore order. Terrorism is a truly abhorrent, lethal, wicked and repulsive thing: chucking paint over planes and ridiculing the RAF and the Government in the process does not even begin to compare with it. This devaluation of a word with a precise meaning is highly dangerous. Lord (Toby) Young, in his excellent work for the Free Speech Union, has disclosed that Prevent – the increasingly preposterous, Left-leaning body that tries to stop terrorism at its roots – has done research that suggests 'red flags' for spotting potential far-right terrorists are people who like, among other things, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, GK Chesterton's poems, The Bridge On the River Kwai, The Dam Busters and Yes, Minister. Where do I give myself up? Many of us remember real terrorism, perpetrated by real terrorists: the Birmingham and Guildford Bombings; the Hyde Park Bombings; murders in Manchester, both by the IRA in 1992 and 1996 and, a generation later, an Islamic extremist who killed 22 at the city's Arena in 2017; the massacre on 7/7, which killed 52 innocent people in 2005; and if that's not enough, Lockerbie. I could go on. Does all that utter horror compare with exposing the pitiful security at Brize Norton and slapping paint on planes? Of course not. This seemed to start in 2016, after the abominable murder of Jo Cox, the Labour MP, by Thomas Mair, a recluse and weirdo unknown to the authorities. He was rapidly branded a 'terrorist' by politicians when it became clear he had a deeply unhealthy obsession with the far-right and its doctrines. He was a member of no terrorist organisation. What he did was appalling, but he was no more a terrorist than any politically-motivated psychopath acting alone. Ms Cox's murder came days before the Brexit vote. Those who branded Mair a 'terrorist' (and the authorities rapidly followed suit) were surely not trying to associate him with the Brexit movement – were they? On Friday, four people were arrested over the Brize Norton incident. If convicted, they must suffer exemplary punishment. However, I hope the Government accepts its responsibilities for such pathetic security. And I also hope that in future it reserves the term 'terrorist' for those who really merit it, rather than diluting it for idiotic troublemakers or lethal misfits.
South Wales Guardian
29 minutes ago
- South Wales Guardian
Two further terror arrests after vandalism of planes at RAF base
Counter Terrorism Policing South East said two men aged 22 and 24, both from London, were taken into police custody after the incident at RAF Brize Norton on June 20. They are accused of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, contrary to Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. On Friday, a woman, aged 29, of no fixed address, and two men, aged 36 and 24, from London, were also arrested accused of the same offence. A 41-year-old woman, of no fixed address, was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, police said. Palestine Action previously posted footage online showing people inside the Oxfordshire base, with one person appearing to ride an electric scooter up to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker, before spray-painting into its jet engine. The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made the decision to proscribe Palestine Action following the incident, with the arrests coming just days before the proscription is set to come into force. Support for the group will become a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison when the ban comes into effect as soon as next Friday. Palestine Action has staged demonstrations that have included spraying the London offices of Allianz Insurance with red paint and vandalising US President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire. As she announced plans for Palestine Action's proscription, Ms Cooper said the group's methods have become 'more aggressive', with its members showing 'willingness to use violence'. At the time of the incident, the group said it had 'directly intervened in the genocide and prevented crimes against the Palestinian people' by 'decommissioning two military planes'. Palestine Action said Thursday's arrests 'further demonstrates that proscription is not about enabling prosecutions under terrorism laws – it's about cracking down on non-violent protests which disrupt the flow of arms to Israel during its genocide in Palestine'.
The Herald Scotland
40 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Two further terror arrests after vandalism of planes at RAF base
They are accused of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, contrary to Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. On Friday, a woman, aged 29, of no fixed address, and two men, aged 36 and 24, from London, were also arrested accused of the same offence. A 41-year-old woman, of no fixed address, was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, police said. Palestine Action previously posted footage online showing people inside the Oxfordshire base, with one person appearing to ride an electric scooter up to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker, before spray-painting into its jet engine. The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made the decision to proscribe Palestine Action following the incident, with the arrests coming just days before the proscription is set to come into force. Support for the group will become a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison when the ban comes into effect as soon as next Friday. Palestine Action has staged demonstrations that have included spraying the London offices of Allianz Insurance with red paint and vandalising US President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire. As she announced plans for Palestine Action's proscription, Ms Cooper said the group's methods have become 'more aggressive', with its members showing 'willingness to use violence'. At the time of the incident, the group said it had 'directly intervened in the genocide and prevented crimes against the Palestinian people' by 'decommissioning two military planes'. Palestine Action said Thursday's arrests 'further demonstrates that proscription is not about enabling prosecutions under terrorism laws – it's about cracking down on non-violent protests which disrupt the flow of arms to Israel during its genocide in Palestine'.
