Sir Keir Starmer is facing a furious backlash against the arrest of hundreds of people during a protest over Palestine Action on Saturday and has been warned he is making a mistake of “poll tax proportions”.
MPs from across the political divide warned of an excessive use of counterterrorism powers that was riding roughshod over the right to peaceful protest, after it emerged that many of those held were aged over 60.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed on Sunday that 532 arrests were made, 522 for displaying an item in support of a proscribed organisation at the march in central London over the weekend.
Civil liberties groups including Amnesty and Liberty said the arrests were “disproportionate to the point of absurdity” and that the government’s terrorism laws were a threat to freedom of expression.
Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti told The Independent the “proscription of Palestine Action is in danger of becoming a mistake of poll tax proportions” – a reference to Margaret Thatcher’s unpopular policy that triggered civil disobedience and riots.
She added: “The notable presence of so many older people highlights the strength of genuine feeling. Criminal damage at air force bases can be prosecuted, but sweeping guilt by association only exacerbates community tensions and creates a bigger headache for the police.”
The 532 protesters detained on Saturday is thought to be the highest number of arrests made by the Metropolitan Police in a single protest event since the poll tax riot of 31 March 1990.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper defended the police but suggested those who were arrested may not “know the full nature of this organisation”.
Her comment led to calls for the authorities to be more “clear cut” about why they proscribed Palestine Action last month.
The group hit the headlines earlier this year when four members were accused of causing around £7m worth of damage to aircraft at RAF Brize Norton.
After the arrests, Downing Street defended the move to ban the group, saying it was “violent”, had committed “significant injury” as well as criminal damage, and that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre had found the organisation had carried out three separate acts of terrorism.
But former Conservative cabinet minister Sir David Davis told The Independent the arrests were an “excessive use of counterterrorism law”, adding “they’ve gone over the top”.
He said: “We’ve not really been given any evidence for the reasoning behind proscribing Palestine Action. I mean, they broke in and painted an aircraft, they did not set bombs or anything. So that’s the first question. What was the criteria? And then secondly, should you be arresting lots of people because they support a particular side and put up a banner?”
He added: “The authorities should be more clear cut about why they have proscribed Palestine Action.”
Meanwhile, veteran backbencher Diane Abbott said the government is in danger of making itself look “both draconian and foolish”.
And former Labour cabinet minister Peter Hain described the mass arrests as “madness” and said Palestine Action was not “equivalent to real terrorist groups like al-Qaeda or Islamic State [which is] why I voted against its ban”.
Ministers insisted, however, that supporters would “feel the full force of the law”.
Police had warned before Saturday’s protest in Parliament Square, organised by Defend Our Juries, that they would detain anyone expressing support for Palestine Action.
Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones said the right to peacefully protest was a “cornerstone of our democracy, and of course, we respect that”.
But she added that Palestine Action “violently carried out criminal damage to RAF aircraft [and] we have credible reports of them targeting Jewish-owned businesses here in the United Kingdom, and there are other reasons, which we can't disclose because of national security”.
She said: “But they are a proscribed terrorist organisation and anyone showing support for that terrorist organisation will feel the full force of the law.”
Former top prosecutor Nazir Afzal raised the alarm over the impact on court backlogs, telling The Independent prosecuting those arrested would be a “terrific waste of time”.
“These would probably be jury trials as each of them would be advised to plead not guilty and expect a trial in 2027 at the earliest,” he said. “I also suspect that no jury would convict anyhow.”
Amnesty International chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said: “Peaceful protest is a fundamental right. People are understandably outraged by the ongoing genocide being committed in Gaza and are entitled under international human rights law to express their horror.”
He added: “We have long criticised UK terrorism law for being excessively broad and vaguely worded and a threat to freedom of expression. These arrests demonstrate that our concerns were justified.”
Sam Grant, director of external relations at Liberty, said: “The scenes we saw over the weekend of mass arrests at public protests are deeply concerning. That hundreds of people were arrested under these powers further highlights the dangerous breadth and vagueness of the UK’s anti-terrorism laws. Conflating protest activity with terrorism rightly has the general public scratching their heads."
Membership of, or support for, Palestine Action is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Securing a charge for an offence under the Terrorism Act will, in some instances, require approval by both the Crown Prosecution Service and attorney general Lord Hermer, police said.
Palestine Action co-founder, Huda Ammori, said the Parliament Square demonstration would “go down in our country’s history as a momentous act of collective defiance of an unprecedented attack on our fundamental freedoms”.
She also criticised the policing methods used, claiming the fact most of those arrested at the protest were “given street bail and allowed to go home” proved the current ban was “unenforceable”.
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