Nestlé and Cadbury are not the same organisation. They both have exactly the same purpose and extremely similar methods of achieving that purpose. Their chocolate products, retail technique, marketing, manufacturing process and ingredients are in essence the same kind of thing.
Not the same organisation
Police Scotland and the famously corrupt Crown Office (the Scottish prosecution service) are treating the Leonardo 3 as terrorists, on the grounds Shut Down Leonardo must be Palestine Action because it has similar aims and methods. That is the Nestlé/Cadbury fallacy.
[Note for pedants. I am using familiar competing brands with different ownership. The ultimate ownership of Cadbury is irrelevant here.]
The young women are being treated appallingly. They are held in the terrorism interrogation centre at Govan police station. The police have repeatedly refused the request by their families to pass on to them the name of the solicitors briefed to represent them, and have also knocked back that solicitor.
It appears that at least one of the women has had access to the local duty solicitor. That is a lottery but this particular solicitor does appear to be well motivated and doing their best.
All this for three young women who have never harmed anybody nor expressed any intention to hurt anybody, who slightly damaged a fence and sat atop a minibus. That anybody involved – judge, prosecutor, policeman, MI5 officer – goes along with the fascist absurdity of calling this “terrorism” is truly shameful.
That the crushing powers of the Terrorism Act and full panoply of state repression are being visited on innocent, unarmed, young, female protestors is a historic shame on Scotland.
The Lord Advocate sits in the Scottish Cabinet. The SNP should step in and stop this now.
I once again refer you to the decision in the London High Court of 4 July in refusing to delay the proscription of Palestine Action. This explicitly stated that direct action is not aggravated to terrorism.
Underpinning Chamberlain’s judgment of course is the repudiation of the Nestlé/Cadbury fallacy. Not all direct action for Palestine is by Palestine Action, just as not all chocolate is Nestlé.
It is the organisation, not the activity, which is proscribed.
To be terrorism, the Crown Office would have to show it is the same organisation as the former Palestine Action. As Chamberlain states, even involving former members of Palestine Action would not show that. It would need to show it is actually the same organisation active since the proscription of Palestine Action on 5 July.
By choosing to hold the women without charge under the Terrorism Act, reporting restrictions are not in place. I can therefore tell you there are no such links. Shut Down Leonardo is a distinct, and Scottish, organisation.
The Scottish Government has to wake up and shut down fascism in Police Scotland and the Crown Office. Otherwise the whole fabric of our society is changing and fundamental freedoms are being lost.
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The proscription against P@le$tine Acti@n includes the wearing of clothes judged supportive of the proscribed group.
The Scottish Premiership begins in a couple of weeks.
Red boilersuits are apparently a trademark of P@le$tine Acti@n.
What happens when the Green Brigade fills an entire stand at Parkhead with folk wearing red boilersuits and ski masks?
Are Polis Scotland going to arrest everyone under the Prevention of Terrorism Act?
Genius has its limitations, stupidity is not thus encumbered.
And yet you are still not a socialist, let alone a communist.
Resistance to Polis Scotland becoming a goon squad for the Spookocracy must come from the rank-and-file.
The fraud squad at Gartcosh attempted to circumvent the corrupt Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service by leaking to the press regarding the obstacles placed in their way relating to the pursuit of Operation Branchform.
Every organisation will contain individuals who regard personal morality as a burdensome encumbrance to their ascent up the slippery pole.
Honest and brave whistleblowers are desperately needed. Potential whistleblowers would be greatly emboldened by words of encouragement from on high.
Will FM John Swinney display some haw maws and speak oot?
A widnae haud yer breath.
I think the resistance is the slow rot.
Like the armed forces,the police to a lesser extent are suffering chronic recruitment shortfalls and inability to retain experienced & competent personnel.
After all the questions of whom and what, they’re serving has to occur to anyone. With half-a-brain and/or a smidge of integrity.
“Like the armed forces,the police to a lesser extent are suffering chronic recruitment shortfalls and inability to retain experienced & competent personnel.”
I have a friend who used to be a police officer. She said that the force was always looking to save costs by reducing the number of officers, but that they can’t fire or make mass redundancies, because that would look very bad politically. So they just assigned her to boring unfulfilling jobs that didn’t expand her experience. Eventually she got fed up with it, and resigned. She is now in a good job that she enjoys.
Aliases
Section 3(6) of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the Home Secretary to specify by order that an alternative name or alias is to be treated as another name for a proscribed organisation listed in Schedule 2 to the act. The Home Secretary can make an order where they believe the proscribed organisation is operating under that alternative name or that an organisation operating under a name not included in Schedule 2 is for all practical purposes the same as the proscribed organisation.
The use of an alternative name which has not been formally recognised in an order does not prevent the police and Crown Prosecution Service from taking action against an individual for proscription offences. For a successful prosecution, it is necessary to demonstrate that (1) the organisation in question, whatever name it professes to be operating under, is for all practical purposes the same as the proscribed organisation listed in Schedule 2; and (2) that the person in question has committed one of the proscription offences in relation to that organisation. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations–2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version
The Home Office paper goes on to say what are proscription offences including these, which the police are using as suspicion to arrest, i.e.
wear clothing or carry or display articles in public in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation (section 13)
publish an image of an item of clothing or other article, such as a flag or logo, in the same circumstances (section 13(1A))
The question is. has an order been made by the Home Secretary? If not, the three women should not be charged under the terrorism act, even if the police consider the actions of the three women are similar to Palestine Action.
Well fortunately however much this gets suppressed at home, the reputation and scope for nefarious activity of the Westminster regime abroad will continue to take hits.
After all what foreign leadership or general population could listen to the UK’s “human rights” horseshit, without struggling to hold back scornful laughter?
Britain is becoming a global meme for dystopian neo-shit-lib oppression. The country has more political prisoners, stitch up victims and restrictions on people’s ability to go about their lives and be left the f*ck alone. Than many actual despotisms
Britain became a despotism when Blair took out the hereditaries.
Until that point there was the single check on the over mighty executive which was not under the control of the Crown. To quote myself:
Polis Scotland has a long history of appointing a Chief Constable from outwith its own ranks. They are not alone in this. It was standard practice in the RUC and now the PSNI.
This is not a bug, it’s a feature.
During the selection process, local knowledge of demographics, topography, law, culture, customs, and political and judicial structure, is not a virtue, it is an impediment to being hired.
The Chief Constable must show absolute loyalty to the British State, not the citizens they purport to serve. Any Chief Constable showing dangerous independence of though has the spectre of John Stalker dangled in front of them as a warning.
These ambitious men and women covet a cosy sinecure post their Police careers. The House of Lords, or the Chairmanship of some standing Committee. A position in the gift of the British, Permanent State.
Until it is demonstrably proven otherwise, I will assume Polis Scotland is subordinate to MI5, and not the Scottish Government (and by extension, the Scottish people).
You could say the very same for the Head of some / most council leaders and heads of department in Scotland. Meritocracy and being a local in many fields does you no favours in Scotland. Watering down the community and culture, or opportunity to belong, contribute, share knowledge or prosper.
I suspect that what will happen is that they will eventually be released without charge. Like the Kneecap ‘charges’ which have been dismissed. They don’t really want this new draconian police repression of protest tested in court. As long as they act like this, stringing detention out without trial (a true Israeli-style of illegal detention), or representation, the goal of frightening people, intimidating them, repressing protest and making their lives hell, accessing all of their data and storing it, thus incriminating friends and acquaintances, is achieved.
So it becomes ever more transparent what the deliberate proscription of a non-terrorist group was intended to achieve (and why of course they smugly boasted about how it was meant to be ‘draconian’) – the chilling threat to anyone who objects to genocide in Palestine, and the shutdown of any public protest, along with a policing of the discourse. From a so-called Labour government, aided by UK Lawyers for Israel and other Israeli allied groups, it is quite alarming how easily they have folded and ignored the basic presumptions and principles of human rights legislation which includes freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom to protest. See here:
https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/advice_information/right-to-protest/
Well done Craig for trying to get justice for these people, and for highlighting how the police are now making up laws which don’t actually exist, and would be in conflict with basic human rights, which are supposedly ensured by legislation, but they seem entirely ignorant of. They are choosing to misinterpret the law on an entirely false premise. If the girls are released they should sue.for false arrest, denial of their human rights and illegal detention.
The state won’t care, but will consider it a lesson to everyone else, that Palestinian protest against genocide is now a grey area, and you may or may not be lifted and locked up. They want you to be uncertain, a bit scared and apprehensive about merely going out on the street with a. placard. It’s the secret policeman’s wet dream.
Ian, I agree with everything you say, in theory. But let me ask an honest question.
When you cite human rights law, are you making assumptions? Have you actually read the Human Rights Act. of 1998?
I suspect not.
Go and look it up.
You will find that the most important of all of the articles of the European Convention has been excluded.
Article 13 is NOT part of British law.
So what IS Article 13?
They will not take this to court because they do not want to publicise the legal vacuum that is human rights law in the UK. So the process becomes the punishment.
Indeed, a subtlety many people miss. So even if you don’t actually get convicted of anything, they’ve still put you through the degradation, worry, expense, time and energy dealing with the oppressive & byzantine bureaucratic legal procedure. Oftimes for an extended period.
Mayhaps even in the full knowledge that you’ll never get formally sentenced. Thus the ordeal which they can impose again at whim *is* the sentence.
Thanks for the lecture. So you have one point which doesn’t invalidate most of what I said. The point about the victims seeking redress afterwards is one I would like to see, of course, but also a long, expensive road which you cannot reasonably expect people to want to necessarily embark on. So it is not germane to my main point about the proscription act. But I am more interested in what Craig has to say, and what he can do, as well as the political ramifications of what is going on, and the principles behind the HRA, than scoring debating points in contested legal issues, as many here seem to want.
“Articles 1 and 13 of the ECHR do not feature in the HRA because, by creating the Act, the UK has fulfilled these rights. ECHR Article 1 outlines how member states must fix the rights included in the Convention in their own jurisdiction, which the HRA achieves in the UK. ECHR Article 13 states that if people’s rights are violated they. must be able to access an effective remedy, like taking their case to a court for judgement. The HRA ensures that this can happen too.”
https://eachother.org.uk/the-uks-human-rights-act-explained/
And just to emphasise my point, a man was arrested in Glasgow for having a sign which urged people to ‘take action’
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/18/man-arrested-in-glasgow-for-holding-sign-allegedly-supportive-of-palestine-action
It’s pretty obvious that ‘action’ has an open-ended myriad of connotations which do not mean illegal activity. But of course that’s not the point
Craig knows only too well the importance of choosing your words extremely carefully when attempting to communicate views and opinions in a totalitarian state. His doggedness in the face of such overwhelming odds is to be admired. By the way, don’t expect to receive any help or support from the Scottish Government. We’re on our own here.
Re: ‘To be terrorism, the Crown Office would have to show it is the same organisation as the former Palestine Action. As Chamberlain states, even involving former members of Palestine Action would not show that.’
No, it wouldn’t. As per Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the COPFS would only have to show that serious criminal damage to property has been caused for a political, religious or ideological aim – which obviously depends on your definition of ‘serious’. It doesn’t matter what organisation the accused are members of, if any.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/1
All that Judge Chamberlain has stated is that being a former member of Palestine Action will not aggravate anyone’s future convictions for terrorism, etc in support of the Palestinian cause.
Assume that Palestine Action never existed, and hence were never proscribed.
I’d suggest that the action of these 3 women are in and of itself sufficient to be covered by the definition of “terrorism” in the Act.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/1
I’d guess they’re using 1(2)b or 1(2)d as their justification, I’d guess the latter.
So the question is really what are the charging standards for COPFS (or CPS, as I’d guess on this they’d be essentially identical).
Hence unless there has been some official statement to the effect that they’re associating this with PA, I’d suggest your suggestion of a link is premature and a distraction.
You’re relying on Police Scotland and the Lord Advocate in Scotland to do the right and proper thing – you’ve no chance, the COPFS will do what they are told to do – I’ve no doubt the SNP are pro-Israel, and lets not forget Angus Robertson pulling the strings from behind the curtain – those brave young women will be scapegoated to set an example in Scotland – unless of course a judge with integrity throws it out – nah, what am I thinking – this is modern Scotland.
I support the parliamentarians who opposed proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. I support your talking about Shut Down Leonardo as an organisation. These sound like decent young women making a decent symbolic point incurring minimal criminal damage in a good cause.