The three female activists arrested on Tuesday for the direct action against the Leonardo weapons factory in Edinburgh are being treated as terrorists. They have been held now for 40 hours, without either being charged or being brought before a judge, under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act.
They are from the organisation Shut Down Leonardo, which targets the firm which makes parts for the F-35 jets that massacre children in Gaza.
I spent all yesterday trying to organise their legal defence. By 8am I had found the right solicitor and briefed them on the case, including the crucial judgment by Judge Chamberlain in London’s High Court on 4 July.
Chamberlain’s judgment stated explicitly that future direct action protest, even where allegedly criminal, would not be aggravated to terrorism. It was Palestine Action, not the act of protest, which was proscribed.
But the three women are being held incommunicado in Govan police station, and there is simply no way to get information to them to ask for the solicitor I had briefed. The solicitors themselves went to the police station in Edinburgh and were blanked.
The solicitors were told they would be informed once the police knew what was happening. The police never got back to them, and did not even tell them the women had been moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow.
What has almost certainly happened is that the women have been allocated the duty solicitor. This solicitor will not know of Lord Chamberlain’s judgment of 4 July nor any of the background.
Equally crucially, it is extremely improbable that the duty solicitor would sit alongside the women during 48 long hours of interrogation. Frequently those arrested never see the duty solicitor at all, and just get a brief telephone consultation.
Once the duty solicitor has been assigned, another solicitor cannot get access, except at the direct request of those arrested. Who are held incommunicado.
This is crucial, because today they have to be brought before a judge – which will almost certainly be in Court 3 in Edinburgh Sheriff Court in Chambers St. They will very likely be charged with terrorism. That means they will almost certainly not get bail, and could disappear into prison on remand for well over a year.
AMENDMENT – I have since been advised by lawyers that the detention has to be extended today by judicial warrant, but under the Terrorism Act this can be done by a judge in secret without the girls being brought to court. They can still be kept in the cells in Govan.
But terrorism is an incompetent charge, following Chamberlain’s High Court ruling. That was under a fortnight ago and this is the first case. It is very probable that the judge, solicitor and procurator do not know that aspect of the ruling, and there is at the moment no means to put it before the court.
This should be treated as a case of criminal damage – from which many activists have been acquitted by juries – as stopping genocide is seen as ethically more important than very minor damage to a fence.
This photo of the “terrorism” in question makes abundantly plain that Starmer and Cooper are acting as fascists. Nobody could argue in good faith that these women are committing “terrorism”.
It properly charged, there is no sensible reason why the women should not be granted bail.
Everything Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh and Raza Husain stated would happen following the proscription of Palestine Action – for which they were pooh-poohed by Judge Chamberlain – is happening. As given above, Chamberlain stated that:
some of the consequences feared by the claimant and others who have given evidence are overstated.
But he specifically then states that direct action will not be aggravated to terrorism; yet here we have those engaged in the very first direct action after his proscription, being treated as terrorists.
Furthermore the proscription of Palestine Action is indeed causing the police to treat simple criticism of Israel as illegal, again directly contrary to Chamberlain’s judgment.
This video shows Kent police threatening to arrest a protester under the Terrorism Act – leaving them facing up to 14 years in jail – simply for waving a Palestinian flag and calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.
The direction of travel under Starmer is now clear. pic.twitter.com/qKz23CCtPq
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) July 16, 2025
Now, it does not matter whether the police follow through with these threats against free speech. The very fact they are making such threats – and are widely disseminated on social media making such threats – will have a severe chilling effect on many people’s right of free expression.
There is also a great deal of “concern trolling” in progress from fake left outfits like Novara Media, telling people to suppress protest in case they are prosecuted.
Today I am going to resume my efforts to get the Leonardo Three a proper defence.
On 21 July, Judge Chamberlain hears the case for a judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. We will then learn, given the now-unequivocal evidence of the chilling effect on free speech, whether his denial that the proscription would chill free speech and protest, was due to a Panglossian view of our police and prosecutors, or a malevolent and disingenuous device to enforce the proscription.
UPDATE 2 It appears they currently have no legal representation and the police refuse to inform the women of the lawyers arranged for them. This is an outrage. The parents of one have also been told they have now been taken from Govan police station, but will not say to where.
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Thanks for letting me know about Novara Media – I’ve found a few of their posts left scratching my head – good to know they’re a fake left outlet and can be skipped (or at least read with interest in terms of knowing what fake info we need to debunk next).
Judge Chamberlain’s notes in his ruling left me open-mouthed when I read your report. I could not understand how someone so “wet behind the ears” could be allowed so close to a subject so crucial in the face of advancing fascism. And here we are. It will be interesting to see what nonsense he may come up with in the review on 21st July – I would like to be optimistic and think he would have some sort of epiphany and be able to back track the entire proscription and call out the subsequent abuses of his ruling.
We can only hope for the best of all possible worlds, but I suspect most people are turning their backs to tend their gardens with blinkers firmly on.
I already contribute to you on a monthly basis but if there’s a fund raiser for the Three please publish a post with details.
Police Scotland should drop the pretence and rename themselves Scottish Stasi instead. Yet another institution complicit in genocide.
Good luck.
Another protest stopped by fascist means, we are watching the rebirth of the SA/SS actions of the 1930’s, in lockstep with Berlins new Gestapo who are brutally beating protesters.
This is outrageous. How long?before those who fly the legitimate flag of occupied Palestine are being arrested by this Zionist chagrins doing what Israel is doing to the rightful owners of Palestine?
Thank you Craig for trying to get these girls a decent support with an informed lawyer.
I’m interested in what Craig believes is fake about Novara Media? For those of us not in the know it could do with a bit of context.
I agree that the “news” is painful to watch. They very occasionally interview someone interesting on a Sunday though.
Everything, but for one they enthusiastically piled in on the “Corbyn is an anti-semite” campaign.
They were suspect on Assange too, e.g. Ash Sarkar getting the smears in while wringing her hands: “Just sayin’ it’s possible to think that Julian Assange is a definite creep, a probable rapist, a conspiracist whackjob *and* that his arrest has incredibly worrying implications”.
With all due respect, and I do have a great deal of respect for your work, Craig, Novara did not pile in on the “Corbyn is an anti-semite” campaign. They were extremely supportive of Corbyn and went to great lengths to refute those smears.
That isn’t my recollection Chris but I confess I don’t follow them closely.
Novara Media ran an expose on Kai Cunningham (https://novaramedia.com/2025/07/11/reform-supporting-neo-nazi-suspended-from-party/). Is this also fake, or are there better reports on him? Cunningham reminds me of Patrick Harrington of the National Front in the 80s, though Harrington claims to have changed his views since then.
When Corbyn introduced a bill last month calling for an independent inquiry into British complicity in the Gaza Genocide, Aaron Bastani responded on GB News by informing viewers that the UN definition of genocide is too expansive. He then diminished the British role in the genocide.
https://x.com/lesthecroc/status/1930383455398809968
In terms of revealing who Novara really are, it was reminiscent of their ‘antisemitism’ scamming that Craig refers to. (Exemplified by Bastani assuring BBC viewers that antisemitism was absolutely ‘endemic’ among ordinary Corbyn supporters.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zwskQv_qWQg
That BBC episode is particularly hard watching. As a rule I’m unable to remain in a room if any form of BBC media is playing.
I like to watch things I don’t like because I think it’s useful in helping me to understand what people are being told to think. Novara is pretty awful, but it’s useful in that it lays certain kinds of argument that are being put forward.
There are only a few people who I trust in the media landscape and Craig is one of them. That doesn’t mean that I believe everything he says, but I believe that he believes everything he says and there’s no hidden agenda. No doubt there are a small number of other people who fall into that category. Max Blumenthal of the Grayzone seems like another, but I’m not well enough informed to have to know. Some of the things he’s been saying recently are genuinely terrifying (as was Craig’s excellent account of his day at the Supreme Court two weeks ago).
I avoid Novara like the plague. Sarkar’s disgusting comments about Assange and the smears against Corbyn show you what side they are really on.
Fine work Mr Murray. On behalf of all of us, (I personally have no direct connection to these events) thank you for your intervention and efforts.
Clearly, there should be a legal challenge to the detention of those outstanding women, resulting, at the very least, in compensation, and those policemen should face disciplinary action.
That should then be widely publicised. Don’t, of course, expect the BBC &c to do so, but a strategic social media approach could then very effectively disseminate information about these travesties of justice and their increasing, threatening encroachment on the British public and society.
Good morning Craig.
Good morning Clark, though I have to say my concern for these women and the extraordinary way they have been tweeted is rather spoiling my mood so far.
I hope the petitioners on 21st July will make good use of your column ‘The Big Chill’, as well as the harassment by police of Laura Murton in Canterbury: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/17/armed-police-threatened-to-arrest-kent-protester-for-holding-palestinian-flag
Novara Media is a deep state tool – one of its founders is Aaron Bastani – Novara Media has, or had links to Integrity Initiative.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Novara_Media
Lets hope Judge Chamberlin holds true to his quote.
“direct action will not be aggravated to terrorism”
Some groups of people have always felt the iron fist of the British Empire’s military dictatorship, so this is more the velvet glove becoming so tattered that all but scurvy politicians and their ilk can see through the illusion now. What else are gold plate, fine robes and furred gowns for?
Yet the Fascist State have not investigated the Scheiber family cult scam who are evading corporate and council taxes up and down the country and laughing not only to all the way to the bank but arming to the teeth their sect of invaders in the West Bank. That is directly funding terror at the expense of communities in Palestine and by loss of funding of services by councils , even here. Racism if ever and only gleefully achieved in Scamalot UK where they can get away with it.
They should be proscribed and their bank accounts seized for profits of crime and arming terror groups.
Since when was maim and murder the accepted position?
Chamberlain judgement was in the English High Court, and then reinforced by an English Appeal Court decision.
As such, surely at best they are merely persuasive with respect to the Scottish Court system?
Yes that is true. We are looking to take the case separately to the Court of Session. It is interesting that applications for judicial review of ministerial actions that apply to the entire UK, are effectively always taken in the High Court of England and Wales and de facto accepted by Scotland. It’s time to challenge that.
Excellent report.
Our country resembles the Israeli regime more and more every day and the honest people are the Palestinians, treated appallingly and illegally by the UK regime. With a corrupt Judiciary it is apparent that the only viable recourse is going to be violent protest to break out of this zionist hell.
Unfathomable that this could happen, without any obstacle or protest, in 2025. Where are Amnesty, HRW etc so silent? Why are domestic human rights jurists and lawyers silent?! This development could never have happened under the Corbyn-government. What a truly heinous, evil Starmer is. He is obviously being braiwashed daily by pro-israel propaganda/narrative and the indoctrination obviously starts at home by his wife and her family.
We all know the type of strong condemnation and how critical, the western coverage would look like if russians protesting the ukrainan war were to be arrested like this and that under some trumped up criminal/terrorist label. Russia and other nations must start calling the western hypocrisy out, if there is no one in the inside of the western world that is going to do this, it must come from the outside!
Also if, verbatim, “Palestine Action” is considered a “terrorist” organisation according to the pathetic jobsworth clientele, would it not solve the issue by adding just another word to the name of the group?
Like “Palestine Action 2025“, “Palestine Action against Genocide“, “Palestine Actions”
Or simply made up a new novel group name every time?
“This development could never have happened under the Corbyn-government”
==========
WHAT Corbyn government?