Disrupt complicity in genocide – Kim Johnson MP

“Our government’s actions are not passive, they are a willing participant in the genocide. Which makes it all the more important to protest and disrupt them.”

By Kim Johnson MP

Two years into the genocide on Gaza, which has been livestreamed onto our phones and into our living rooms, this Labour government has still failed to take a single meaningful step to put an end to the death and destruction, or to end our own complicity in the genocide.

We continue to sell arms to Israel, crucially F-35 parts used to 2000-pound drop bombs on Gazan children living in tents. Earlier this month, Starmer rolled out the red carpet at Number 10 for Israeli President Herzog. Just before that Lammy, then in his role as Foreign Secretary, took the unprecedented step to rule on behalf of the UK government that Israel is not committing genocide. He did this just days before the damning UN report that confirmed Israel actually is committing genocide in Gaza. A deliberate political move to shield Israel from international accountability, and one that shows just how far our government is willing to go to protect its allies.

Our government’s actions are not passive, they are a willing participant in the genocide. Which makes it all the more important to protest and disrupt them. This government – backed by a complicit media – is doing everything it can to make us feel isolated and powerless. Despite this, we continue to regularly show out in our hundreds of thousands – a huge feat in the face of powerful attempts to disguise, distort and manipulate the issues.

It shows that the people are with us, outraged at the ethnic cleansing and deliberate targeting and starvation of Palestinians. Faced by mounting pressure and unwilling to change their position, this Labour government led by a human rights lawyer has chosen to clamp down on democratic levers of accountability, far surpassing the Tories’ record on this.

Public opposition to Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people has produced one of the largest protest movements in British history. Draconian anti-protest laws pushed through by the Tories are now being expanded on by Labour. The Crime and Policing Bill, set to return to the House of Lords this autumn, is a direct threat to our civil liberties and the right to protest. Far from rolling back on the criminalisation of peaceful protest, the bill will contain government amendments that seek to further expand these powers to curtail and even shut down protests.

This includes restricting the right to protest in the vicinity of religious places of worship, a vaguely worded and significantly problematic amendment that is blatantly targeted at pro-Palestine protests. Police have already used such excuses to prevent legitimate protests, for example the demonstration in January this year that aimed at holding the BBC accountable for their biased reporting of Israel’s genocide. The police did not allow it to go ahead on the basis that it risked causing ‘serious disruption’ to a nearby synagogue on Shabbat.

Central London is packed with places of worship, with churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and other places of various religions and denominations on almost every corner. If passed, this amendment would give the police unprecedented powers to restrict protest, with no threshold for evidence of threat or disruption needed.

Disgracefully, anti-terror legislation is now being used to label non-violent direct action as terrorism, prosecute performance artists and to criminalise peaceful protestors. Non-violent demonstrators are being treated as national security threats. Hundreds of ordinary people, mostly over 60s, have bravely put themselves on the line to defend our juries and fight back against the criminalisation of peaceful protest and direct action.

Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of the far-right were able to march through London in early-September, unimpeded with minimal policing. Despite attacks on police, with 26 injured, and racist and violent acts committed towards visible minorities. The contrast is stark and deliberate.

Huge police resources have been redirected to arresting people sitting holding cardboard placards, who are now facing up to 14 years in jail. MPs have been hauled in for questioning for simply marching in solidarity with Palestinians and trying to lay flowers in memory of murdered children. Police now routinely place restrictions on the duration, routes and location of pro-Palestine marches, using special powers to enforce exclusion zones and reduce the impact. The Met has also currently imposed a de facto ban on marching via any route through central London to the Israeli embassy on a Saturday on the basis it might cause ‘serious disruption’ to synagogues, despite there being none on the proposed routes and no synagogue ever having been targeted for protest by PSC and the rest of the organising coalition.

It smacks of a government that believes it can act with impunity. Consistent with its ongoing complicity in the genocide. But we will not stop.

When we return to Parliament, a broad coalition including Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Liberty, Amnesty and Greenpeace, among many others, are supporting a series of amendments to the Crime and Policing bill that seek to roll back on the most damaging police powers that are being used to quell popular dissent. We’ve done it before. Three years ago, public pressure helped to defeat key elements of the Tories’ anti-protest laws in the Lords. We can do it again – by making our voices heard from the streets to Parliament.

• Join Kim with Palestine’s Ambassador and other speakers at a public event during Labour Party Conference: Palestine – the Defining Issue of Our Time. 4.30pm Saturday, September 27. Register here.
• Kim Johnson MP is the MP for Liverpool Riverside, you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and Tik Tok. 
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