Huda Ammori Wins a Judicial Review of Palestine Action Proscription 117


On Wednesday we were crammed into the unsalubrious court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice to hear the judgment from Judge Chamberlain on whether Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action would be granted a judicial review of the proscription of the organisation.

Judge Chamberlain breezed in and went immediately into a summary of his judgment, beginning with an account of the process so far. This was covered in my last report; the only new information was that the Special Advocate who had been present during the closed session was Tim Buley KC.

In this extraordinary abuse of process, the security services are allowed to bring alleged “intelligence” material into proceedings, which Huda Ammori and Palestine Action are not permitted to see. Nor are their lawyers allowed to have any idea what allegations have been made.

Instead a court-appointed “Special Advocate” is supposed to represent their interests, without being allowed to tell them what the accusations are. Nor can they tell the special advocate what points to make, as in “we absolutely have no foreign funding and have never had any contact with any foreign intelligence agencies”.

Nobody is ever allowed to know what a “Special Advocate” actually does or says in the closed session, nor what the government lawyers or those giving evidence on behalf of the security services do or say.

If I were a Special Advocate, I would do nothing except hand the judge a copy of the Dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, and say: “This shows the quality of security service intelligence. Now go and wipe your arse with it.”

Having told us there had been a closed evidence process, Judge Chamberlain then gave us what he said would be a brief summary of his judgment. The link is to the full judgment.

Chamberlain said that the claimant (Huda Ammori) had introduced evidence of police action against people expressing in various ways support for the Palestinian cause. There was also evidence of people deliberately breaking the law on support for proscribed organisations.

The Home Secretary had submitted that the correct route for an appeal against proscription was to POAC (the Proscribed Organisations Appeals Commission). The Claimant had responded that this would take too long, until June 2026 at the earliest.

There were five reasons that POAC might not be a viable alternative remedy to a judicial review:

1) Timing – the POAC process could not conclude before mid-2026.
2) The impact on freedom of expression and assembly while the proscription remained in force.
3) There would be numerous criminal proceedings over support for Palestine Action in magistrates’ courts and crown courts up and down the country, in each of which it might be argued that the proscription was itself unlawful. There was a danger of conflicting judgments in different localities.
4) The legislation did not specify that an appeal against proscription could only be through POAC.
5) A judicial review did not close off an eventual process through POAC.

In assessing that a judicial review was a permissible route, he had declined to follow the judgment over the Kurdish Workers’ Party, because new court procedures (the Special Advocate nonsense) now permitted the courts to handle intelligence material, which they did not at the time of that case. Plus, that judgment was plainly wrong.

This was stated with such offhand disdain as to be striking. Of course judges can differ, but the bland contempt of the phrasing and delivery were unusual: “plainly wrong” to a judge of equal standing.

Which brings me to the unavoidable question of Chamberlain’s demeanour.

Sometimes my powers as a writer are not equal to the occasion. I have never seen anybody quite as self-satisfied as Chamberlain; he radiates assurance. He is the walking antithesis of impostor syndrome. It is worse than smug: there is a palpable gloat about him.

Judges in the Royal Courts are seated on an imposing tiered dais, many feet above the courtroom. Some judges attempt to diminish the distance; this can come over in different ways, from condescension to chumminess to intellectual equality.

Chamberlain does not bother. He is quite happy that our only view of him is up his nostrils.

He rattled through the grounds of appeal which the claimant had put forward.

Ground 1: Chamberlain was satisfied that Yvette Cooper had not acted for an improper political purpose but in the interests of national security.

Ground 2: That the proscription was a disproportionate limitation on freedom of expression was reasonably arguable.

Ground 3: It was not arguable that Palestine Action did not commit acts intended to influence the government, or that those who did were insufficiently connected to the organisation.

Ground 4: It was not arguable that Cooper had failed to consider significant information about Palestine Action or its classes of supporters.

Ground 5: Cooper did not err in giving weight to the views of Israel, to questions of financial loss and to other stated factors in concluding terrorism.

Ground 6: That Cooper failed to give weight to the need to oppose Genocide – this could be wrapped up in the balance question of disproportionate action under Ground 2.

Ground 7: The fact that only 3 of 387 actions were deemed by JTAC (the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre) to be terrorist – this could also be wrapped up in the proportionality exercise under Ground 2.

Ground 8: That Cooper had failed to consult those affected by the proscription under her common law duty; including not consulting with Palestine Action nor with any pro-Palestinian group or individual, when she did consult with the Israeli Embassy, weapons manufacturers and others. This was a reasonably arguable point of law.

Ground 9: That Cooper had ignored her obligations to prevent discrimination under the Equalities Act by targeting a pro-Palestinian protest movement – this was not arguable.

So Chamberlain concluded that a judicial appeal was granted under Grounds 2 and 8 but dismissed on all other grounds. However, as you will have gathered, he had in effect accepted that Grounds 6 and 7 were also arguable points, but they could be taken as part of Ground 2.

Chamberlain then suggested to Raza Husain, lead KC for Huda Ammori, that he suspected he would wish to seek interim relief and expedition of the case. Raza Husain stood and said the claimant wished to request interim relief, which would suspend the proscription pending the judicial review.

Chamberlain did not answer, but he paused the court while printed copies of his judgment were handed round to the media.

Raza Husain then tried again, but Chamberlain first turned to discussion about when the judicial appeal might be heard. Ben Watson, KC for the Home Secretary, wanted a longer period for disclosure and was adamant that the process could not start until some security services-related event on 12 September, which could not be discussed in open court.

This key event and date were referred to frequently in hushed tones. Hackers and foreign spy agencies please take note: 12 September. Raza Husain pressed for the hearing to be as soon as possible. Chamberlain pointed out that the dangers of haste “cut both ways” – full disclosure was also in the interests of the client.

This was pretty ironic, as the key “intelligence” on which the case turns is never disclosed at all.

Ben Watson KC then said the Secretary of State wished to appeal the decision to grant judicial review. Chamberlain replied that could wait, as he did not wish to go into closed court at the moment.

Raza Husain then stood and said again that the claimant wished to renew the application for interim relief – with great patience and as though he had not said it four times already.

Chamberlain said he had expected this, as though it were the most tiresome thing in the world.

He then ignored Raza and said that he had decided to grant permission to intervene in the case to Professor Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur “on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism”.

Raza Husain noted this and then said the claimant wished to apply for interim relief.

Chamberlain was somewhere else. He said that Professor Saul’s expertise would obviously be welcome, but the permission to intervene did not mean he could guarantee any particular time slot or consideration, which would be up to the court hearing the judicial review “which may or may not be me”.

My handwritten notes have a marginal entry that this was the 6th time Chamberlain had interrupted the application for interim relief. Finally Raza Husain got to embark on it.

Since the first request for interim relief a fortnight ago, over 1,000 more Palestinians had been killed in Gaza. 80 children had been starved to death. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, had made a detailed statement criticising the proscription of Palestine Action and specifically asking for it to be revoked.

Chamberlain asked what precisely he was seeking in law. Raza Husain replied it was a stay of Article 2 of the Order, the proscription of Palestine Action.

Chamberlain said that his previous judgment against an interim stay had already accepted there was a serious issue to be heard, on the effect upon freedom of speech. But that was insufficient reason for a stay.

Raza Husain said that Ground 8, which was now accepted, was extremely important. It was a very strong argument, so strongly based as to justify the suspension of a proscription not done by due process.

Chamberlain replied that he had already noted there may be an arguable case on grounds 4 to 8, in his judgment against an interim stay. The Court of Appeal had agreed with him against the interim stay.

Raza Husain then handed over to Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC who said people were being deprived of freedom of expression protections under Article X of the European Convention on Human Rights. The chilling effect was on thousands of people.

Chamberlain said that may be true, but there could be irreparable harm on both sides. He had to consider the harm that might be done to national security by the suspension of the proscription order for several months.

Blinne responded that it was ridiculous, on grounds of alleged national security, to arrest elderly people for holding a placard, keeping them incommunicado as terrorists and going through their property with swabs.

Chamberlain replied that the argument is that such action is necessary to suppress the organisation as a whole.

Blinne asked whether proscription is actually necessary to protect the national interest, as opposed to the large number of other legal remedies available to the Secretary of State?

There were three kinds of freedom of speech affected. These were… Chamberlain then cut her off, saying he had identified these as speech which was legal in support of Palestine, speech which was deliberately defying the law, and speech which fell in a grey area of interpretation.

This was one of many interruptions by Chamberlain who made very plain that he was not interested in hearing this argument again. Blinne appeared to be continually apologising for her own existence: “I don’t want to push this too far”, “I will only lightly touch upon it”, “I won’t take up much time”.

What she was really saying was: “I can see you are not in the slightest bit interested in listening to me”. And she was right.

But she gamely ploughed on. Blinne said that people making perfectly legal expressions of support for Palestine were being harassed by police owing to the proscription, and the grey area appeared to include people who were opposing the proscription of Palestine Action.

There was also a fourth category: the press. There was much evidence of a chilling effect of the proscription on what journalists felt able to write about Palestine, as shown in evidence submitted by John McEvoy and others.

Furthermore the situation was made worse by section 12.1.a of the Terrorism Act which specifically removed the need for intent in criminalised speech. Accidentally saying something taken to be supportive of Palestine Action could be an offence.

Chamberlain said that was for the police and the courts to deal with.

Blinne said it should not fall on the police and courts to make such judgments and it should not fall on ordinary members of the public to try and predict an invisible line they should not cross following the first ever proscription of a non-violent protest group.

People had been arrested for holding signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” That is not speech that threatens the security of the UK nor the safety of the public.

Raza Husain now took over again. He noted that the disclosure documents from the Home Office specifically stated that national security was not the “driving factor” for the proscription. They also specifically stated there was no damage to national infrastructure, nor any impact on national defence. The “attack” on Brize Norton was an act of vandalism which the Home Office documents disclosed would not affect the operation of aircraft painted.

This was fascinating. Plainly the Home Office internal documents show that what Yvette Cooper has been saying to Parliament and putting into the media is a lie.

Husain went on that the disclosure documents indicated that the timing of the proscription depended on factors including the local elections, a criminal trial, Israeli breaches of a ceasefire agreement, and a religious holiday.

That the proscription remaining in force is critical to national security is plainly therefore a nonsense, said Husain. At this point, Chamberlain interrupted him again.

My handwritten note only says “Chamberlain supercilious”. It had been obvious that Chamberlain had no interest in the arguments for interim relief. He had ruled on that two weeks ago, and as he is infallible, this was all a waste of time.

He did not actually say “talk to the hand” but his body language could not be more obvious. Occasionally he would relieve the ennui by interrupting Raza or Blinne mid-sentence.

Judge Chamberlain has never heard a sentence spoken that could not be improved by an interjection from Judge Chamberlain. Being a generous man, he declines ever to deprive the world of his great wisdom or make people suffer by listening to the uninterrupted thoughts of mere lawyers.

The effect of this is that we frequently can only surmise what the argument was going to be before it was intercepted and corrected. Chamberlain’s ability to predict what somebody was going to say and replace it with something more clever instead is uncanny – at least in his own estimation.

I do recall what Chamberlain said that caused me to write “Chamberlain supercilious”. He said that he supposed that Mr Husain would tell him that an interim stay was necessary and that Mr Watson would argue that it was dangerous.

Raza Husain was plainly annoyed. It is not just that I will say there should be a stay and Mr Watson will say the opposite, he said. It is the reasons which are important. He then continued to try to make progress, and was plainly angered by another interjection by Chamberlain.

“That’s not what I said”, Husain stated, plainly furious at being misrepresented. “That’s not what I said”, he repeated. Shortly after, he drew to a close.

Ben Watson KC for the Home Secretary had nothing to say in public that would defend the need for the proscription to continue in force. His argument both against the interim stay, and for the right to appeal against the granting of judicial review, was entirely based on secret intelligence. We therefore had to clear the court.

I don’t know what Chamberlain heard in private from the intelligence services. I should be very surprised if it was not about invented support for Palestine Action from Iran or fabricated plans to attack the Israeli Embassy, because that is precisely the kind of mendacity that Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5, considers it his patriotic duty to churn out on a daily basis.

As I waited in the corridor for court to resume, there was a rather touching moment. A Muslim patriarch with a most impressive white beard came out from the adjacent courtroom at the conclusion of another, unrelated case. He was followed by his large family.

He recognised me, shook my hand and stated “We are 100% with you, all of us. Let me know if there is anything we can do.” Turning round and gesturing to his family, he asked “Would you like us to stay here and support you now?”

I thanked him genuinely but declined, as there was absolutely no space in the courtroom. But I record it because little moments like that can keep us going in these difficult times. I was genuinely touched.

After 45 minutes of secret spook-fest inside the courtroom, honest people were allowed back in. Chamberlain then produced his decisions.

To overturn his judgment of 4 July not to grant interim relief from proscription, there would have to be a material change of circumstances in the interim. Three grounds had been advanced:

1) That he had granted permission on ground 8, which the claimant stated was especially strong. But this was not a material change as he had stated before that grounds 4 to 8 might be arguable.

2) The extent of interference with freedom of speech. But this was not a material change as he had noted the interference with freedom of speech at para 100 of his original judgment. All that had happened was that possibilities he had foreseen had turned into concrete fact.

3) That the Secretary of State had given no evidence of threat to the public. But this was not a change since 4 July.

So, said Chamberlain, there was no material change of circumstance and the request for interim relief was denied.

The Secretary of State’s application for Permission to Appeal was also dismissed. Watson would have to apply direct to the Court of Appeal.

Finally, the judicial review could not be further expedited and would have to be held in a convenient week after 10 November.

With that, the hearing concluded.

My immediate feeling was outrage at the chutzpah of Chamberlain in claiming that he had predicted the effects of the proscription on freedom of speech, when the exact opposite is true – he pooh-poohed them. He did indeed state at para 100 of his 4 July judgment:

The evidence I have seen established that the broad criminal prohibitions imposed by the 2000 Act, and the very long sentences potentially available for breach of them, can cast a long shadow over freedom of speech. This, however, is the inherent consequence of a regime which aims to disrupt and disable organisations which meet the threshold for proscription.

But that paragraph only refers specifically to people protesting

under the banner of PA

Chamberlain in fact entirely rubbished the notion that people protesting more generally on Palestine would be affected. He stated explicitly in para 96 that:

In my judgment some of the consequences feared by the claimant and others who have given evidence are overstated.

And in para 97 Chamberlain got wrong everything that was going to happen next. He states that it will remain lawful:

… to continue to express their opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere, including by drawing attention to what they regard as Israel’s genocide… They will remain free to do so in private conversations, in print, on social media and at protests.

Yet Chamberlain had now been given evidence that the police were in fact, since the proscription, persecuting people for precisely the activities he had said would still be allowed.

What is more, in the 19 July hearing for a judicial appeal, Chamberlain had actually accepted that he got this wrong in his 4 July decision on interim relief. Here are extracts from the report of that hearing by Mohamed Elmaazi for this blog:

“I think what you’re doing is, you’re saying, you predicted this,” Mr Justice Chamberlain told Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC – representing Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori the morning of 21 July at the High Court of Justice – “and what you’re doing now is sharing evidence that they have happened.”

The judge’s remarks were in response to Ghrálaigh describing example after disturbing example of pro-Palestine and anti-genocide protesters being threatened with arrest — or actually arrested – across the country, ever since Palestine Action was banned as a terrorist organisation.

…Two weeks later, Chamberlain’s tone was somewhat modified. He appeared to accept that he may have been wrong. In fact, he actually reminded the parties of what he wrote by reading out part of his decision refusing permission.

Ghrálaigh told the court that the situation is “even worse” than even they had predicted.

So how did Chamberlain go from openly accepting that on 4 July he got this wrong, to claiming that there had been no material change as he foresaw everything correctly on 4 July?

The answer of course lies in those secret sessions with the security services.

To connect all this back into what is really happening on the streets, the police this evening detained hundreds of people in London, as they aggressively broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration.

So while the granting of a judicial review represents some kind of victory, it is meaningless for now, as both the proscription and the repression continue – as does the Genocide.

I do not have any hope for success from the judicial review – all this is part of the smoke and mirrors of process and legality behind which the British Establishment seek to mask their complicity in the crimes of Zionism.

 

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117 thoughts on “Huda Ammori Wins a Judicial Review of Palestine Action Proscription

1 2
  • Rosemary MacKenzie

    I find this very difficult to understand. What has the state got against Palestine Action, a perfectly legitimate organization with perfectly legitimate goals! I live in Canada and attended a pro-Palestinian rally last Sunday outside the office of our local MP. People banged pots, made speeches in support of the Palestinians and against the starvation and genocide in Gaza, signed petitions etc – not a policeman in sight. It sounds to me as if the Westminster government has been firmly infiltrated by the Israelis and zionists. It should be deposed/overthrown – what is the term – it is operating in the interests of a fascist foreign government not the people of Britain therefore it has lost legitimacy as a true government. There must be some way to get rid of it and its leaders ie Starmer etc tried for treason.

    • M.J.

      Zionists have been lobbying and influencing the British government for over 100 years, since before the Balfour declaration. A good resource may be Ilan Pappé’s Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (ISBN 0861549163).

      • Rosemary MacKenzie

        Yes, I know the Canadian government is completely complicit, and thereby making us all complicit. I try hard not to let them get away with it – emails which they never answer, petitions, demos. Carney has annoyed Trump with his announcement that Canada will recognize the Palestinian State in September, of course his announcement was surrounded with all kinds of unnecessary and unsuitable caveats. The Palestinian state must be designed by the Palestinians not the zionists and any constrictions need to be equally applied to Israel. We hear so much about the “hostages” ie prisoners held by Hamas but never about the THOUSANDS of prisoners held by Israel, some of whom are children arrested for just throwing stones, and etc GRRrrrrr! I suspect that every child who dies recruits thousands to Hamas. Who are we to judge Hamas anyway. It is a resistance organization not a terrorist. The Israelis tag everyone who opposes them with the label terrorist and the other is antisemite!

  • Allan Howard

    Someone on skwawkbox posted a link to the following article about 45 minutes ago about the upcoming Defend Our Juries protest in support of Palestine Action in which it says the following in relation to PA:

    Asked if the government would encourage people not to attend the protest, Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said: “Any action that is in support of a proscribed group in the UK, of course we do not support and the court has confirmed their continued proscription status.”

    The spokesperson added: “The home secretary previously said that those who seek to support this group may yet not know the true nature of this organisation, but people should be under no illusion this is not a peaceful or non-violent protest group.”

    https://uk.news.yahoo.com/police-planning-arrest-anyone-supporting-113941793.html

    We really REALLY have to get shod of these sick twisted demented mega-sadistic mass-murdering planet-destroying psychopathic cnuts and start fixing and healing and transforming the totally insane fucked-up world/reality they’ve created. It’s way WAY past time!

    Fuck you all!

    • Allan Howard

      Just came across the following Indy article, posted a couple of hours ago:

      Planned Palestine Action protest will not try to overwhelm police – organisers

      A Defend Our Juries spokesperson told the PA news agency: “It is wrong to characterise this (planned demonstration) as a plan to overwhelm the police and court systems.

      “If we are allowed to protest peacefully and freely, then that is no bother to anyone.”

      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/juries-government-metropolitan-police-yvette-cooper-people-b2801691.html

      Wouldn’t it be wonderful if millions of people were to join in the protest and, as such, tell the nazi shit running the show – along with their fucking SS scumbags doing their bidding – to go fuck themselves. I mean what the fuck would the establishment and the Starmerfuher and Co do if the police refused to arrest the people protesting in support of Palestine Action, because as long as they DO keep on arresting them and hassling and intimidating Palestinian supporters, they are not only doing the bidding of nazis, but THEY are acting like fucking nazis. And I don’t use the word lightly.

      Do they realise that they are?! Or don’t they give a fuck? Or are they all automatons who just do what the fuck they’re told to do?

    • Robert Hughes

      ” We really REALLY have to get shod of these sick twisted demented mega-sadistic mass-murdering planet-destroying psychopathic cnuts and start fixing and healing and transforming the totally insane fucked-up world/reality they’ve created. It’s way WAY past time!

      Fuck you all! ”

      Spot -on . Exactly how I – and millions of others – feel/think .

      We’re living through what History will record ( assuming there is anyone left to do the recording ) as How The West Was Lost .

      U.S Foreign Policy dictated by psycho * religious * screwballs like L Graham & McConnell ; CIA and , of course , the shadow POTUS – Netanyahu . All of them dangerously unhinged

  • Stevie Boy

    Caitlin on form:
    “So when people claim at this late date that they are coming to the reluctant conclusion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, I have a hard time believing them. It was obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of human nature that Israel had no intention of leaving any survivors of this mass atrocity on its border. People are just covering their own asses and trying to wash their hands of their guilt for their complicity in a 21st century holocaust over the past 22 months.”
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-genocidal-intentions-obvious/5896816

  • M.J.

    Ali Abunimah on the Electronic Intifada has given a good explanation and denunciation of the “grand apartheid” solution for Palestine, that many Western as well as Arab countries seem to be enthusiastically supporting, heedless of the fact that in its principles and even language it implements the racist vision of Israel:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyGy4KRtMU4
    24:19 minutes into the video the lawyer Craig Mokhiber gives an excellent response of his own, that Abunimah commends.

    • Stevie Boy

      I honestly think that these morons actually hero worship the genociders – and they are supposedly responsible, respected representatives of their citizens. We are doomed.

  • Ian

    If you had any doubt of what I was trying to say earlier about the proscription of PA being merely the pretext for the main aim – the silencing and intimidation of Palestinian supporters and demonstrations then have a look at this statement by Audrey White who was arrested and bailed. The conditions of her bail are a sentence, a gross violation of her rights and the surreal incompetence of them only makes it worse. Have no doubt – this was the aim of the bill. The police hardly care whether you support PA or not, if you speak up about Palestine then you are fair game. That is what they want you to fear and worry about.

    https://skwawkbox.org/2025/08/04/a-statement-from-audrey-white-on-her-arrest-and-bail-for-pro-palestine-protest/

    I would like to see this challenged in court, particularly under our rights vis a vis the ECHR, but I suspect they will go to great lengths to avoid that.

    • Bayard

      From her statement: “The Labour government is moving fast to the tactics of the fascists in the 1930’s surpressing our rights to free speech and protest, even against a genocide.”
      I am forcibly reminded that the fascists in 1930’s Germany also presented themselves for election as socialists.

  • M.J.

    Dame Stella Rimington, first woman to head MI5, has passed away. No more Liz Carlyle novels, sadly, but a Manon Tyler one is coming out later this month. I wonder if there will be any more posthumous works.

  • George

    US Has Likely Moved Nuclear Arms to UK for First Time Since 2008
    By: Ellen Milligan, Gerry Doyle and Tony Capaccio for Bloomberg News
    (Bloomberg) — The US has likely stationed nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time since 2008, in a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that it remains committed to European security.

    On July 16, a US military aircraft flew with its transponder on — making its identification and location publicly visible — from a US nuclear weapons depot at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to an airbase in the UK city of Lakenheath, according to defense analysts and open-source data. The C-17 flight involved the US Air Force’s Prime Nuclear Airlift Force, which transports nuclear weapons, and didn’t fly over any other nation’s territory, according to William Alberque, a Europe-based senior fellow at the Pacific Forum. The US and UK governments have longstanding policies of not commenting on the status or location of their nuclear weapons.

    Read more at:
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/122960115.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

        • andyoldlabour

          The UK is merely an aircraft carrier for US nuclear armed aircraft and in the event of any conflict with another nuclear armed state, would undoubtably be one of the first targets to be totally destroyed.

          • Alyson

            No – Russia, actually. They really are expecting Russia to nuke Europe for them, and if anyone attacks Israel or its proxies, then Israel longs to nuke Europe for itself. They haven’t forgiven Europe for the Nazi holocaust or Russia for its expulsions, and wish to ensure they win everywhere. While America just wants all the goodies. Oil and gas and rare earths etc. And no people, thank you. We have an imminent problem that is going to eclipse the total horror and annihilation of Gaza, and so Arab countries are pledging support for Israel…. Sick, sick, fascist genociders of humanity. What court of law is going to be able to bring them to justice?

        • Stevie Boy

          I was really worried, then you said F35 and I fell about laughing. If this POS is the delivery system then our ‘enemies’ have nothing to worry about. The UK should be more concerned that this flying Yankee scam machine is more likely to fall out of the sky over England and scatter nuclear waste everywhere.

  • Allan Howard

    We don’t know how many times Egyptian intelligence warned Israel of an imminent attack in the weeks and months before October 7th, but it must have been at least three times, because as we learned a few days after the attack, they said they warned Israel repeatedly. The following is from a BBC News article at the time:

    An Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press news agency this week that Cairo had repeatedly warned the Israelis “something big” was being planned from Gaza.

    “We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The Cairo official said Israeli officials had played down the threat from Gaza, instead focusing on the West Bank.

    Needless to say, if it was only TWICE, then they would have said so, and not used the word ‘repeatedly’, so it must have been at least three times, and perhaps four or five times. And the fact that they felt the need to warn Israel again and again and again implies that Egypt knew that Israel wasn’t taking any action to counter or prevent an attack, and be ready for an attack. I mean would you really just go on ignoring such warnings and playing down the possibility when they keep warning you over and over again. Seems inconceivable to me, unlless you had an ulterior motive for doing so. And this is on top of all the reports and concerns of the border spotters in the weeks and months before October 7th, which were dismissed and ALSO played down which, yet again, seems inconceivable…. unless you had an ulterior motive in doing so, that is.

    Then there was the document that Israel somehow obtained over a year before the attack which contained detailed plans of what Hamas intended to do, as reported by the New York Times. The following is from a wikipedia entry entitled ‘October 7 attacks’, in a section subtitled ‘Israeli intelligence failure’:

    According to The New York Times, Israeli officials had obtained detailed attack plans more than a year before the attack. The document described operational plans and targets, including the size and location of Israeli forces, and raised questions in Israel about how Hamas learned these details. The document provided a plan that included a large-scale rocket assault before an invasion, drones to knock out the surveillance cameras and automated guns that Israel has stationed along the border, and gunmen invading Israel, including with paragliders. The Times reported, “Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision.” According to The Times, the document was widely circulated among Israeli military and intelligence leadership, who largely dismissed the plan as beyond Hamas’s capabilities….

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_attacks

    Well in the first place, how on earth did Israel obtain the document? And in the second place, just exactly how did Hamas acquire the information about the size and location of Israeli forces? And in the third place, did Israel ever investigate and determine how they did (I mean what are the possibilities of how Hamas could have)? And how did the NY Times come to learn about it, for that matter?

    So there was the Hamas document detailing plans of an attack, then there were the reports by the border spotters in the weeks and months prior to the attack (in fact a year or more), and then the repeated warnings from Egyptian intelligence. And we’re supposed to believe that despite a combination of all these things, the prospect of an attack by Hamas wasn’t taken seriously.

    Put it this way, if Egypt got wind of Hamas planning a big attack, you can be 1,000% certain that Israel did as well, and knew it was being planned and trained for long before it happened. And let it happen! And did so for a number of obvious reasons!

    This article in the Independent is from December 1st, 2023 (I haven’t been able to locate the NY Times report itself):

    New York Times report says Israel knew about Hamas attack over a year in advance
    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hamas-ap-the-new-york-times-benjamin-netanyahu-israel-b2456870.html [ http://archive.today/1VleL ]

    And this Haaretz article from November 20th, 2023, was reposted by JVL:

    The women soldiers who warned of a pending Hamas attack – and were Ignored
    https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/israeli-women-soldiers-warnings-were-ignored/

    And this was Frank Gardner’s assessment in an article posted on October 7th, 2023:

    How did Israeli intelligence fail to stop major attack from Gaza?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67040221

  • Francis Rawlinson

    While Judge Chamberlain may be arrogant and may understate the degree of infringement of free speech about Israel’s actions in Gaza that the proscription of Palestine Action causes in the meantime, in allowing the judicial review to proceed he has again proved to be one of the few liberal voices in the judiciary not ready to rubber-stamp Home Office policies. He was the judge who, at the second attempt (his first judgement doing so was reversed on appeal), quashed the government’s super-injunction on the leak of data about Afghan asylum seekers. He is probably Palestine Action’s best hope to get the proscription reversed, so you must be thankful for small mercies. The chances of that happening, however, given that it might be another judge who hears the judicial review, and that a supine court of appeals is quite likely to reverse a judgment striking down the proscription on appeal, are not great, despite the fact that the proscription of a protest movement against war crimes as a terrorist organisation is clearly disproportionate. Such is British justice.

    • zoot

      He is not representative of British liberals in this regard.

      The proscription of PA as terrorists, for trying to stop a vicious genocide, is approved of by most people who identify themselves as liberals.

      Polling by Opinium Research last month revealed that 43% of 2024 Liberal Democrat voters support the proscription of Palestine Action as terrorists, with 29% opposed. Among 2024 Labour voters, 37% support proscription, 32% oppose.

      https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1944703685298135444

      In his equivocation on this issue Judge Chamberlain is closer to Craig than to most British liberals.

      • Johnny Conspiranoid

        “The proscription of PA as terrorists, for trying to stop a vicious genocide, is approved of by most people who identify themselves as liberals.”
        Does identifying as a liberal necessarily make someone a liberal if liberalism is a defined set of beliefs and that person does not share those beliefs. If the beliefs that are called ‘liberal’ change over time at what point do they require a different name?

        • zoot

          It’s not only the support for outlawing PA. The Gaza Genocide in general has stripped the mask off western liberalism. Everybody has witnessed the role of not just the west’s leading liberal politicians in abetting the slaughter, but also that of its leading liberal intellectuals and most vaunted liberal media institutions.

          This sudden synchronized ‘noticing’ of the Genocide by liberals in the past couple of weeks is not fooling anybody. It is the most transparent of exercises in revisionist arse covering.

          • Brian Red

            Totally agreed it’s synchronised.

            If there’s a genocide, how can it be illegal to pour paint on warplanes being sent to assist with it? Showing that your action was needed to prevent a greater crime (in this case, a FAR greater crime – a crime against humanity) is a defence.

            But liberals won’t follow that simple logic. They’re as much part of the barbarian machine as MAGA, any day of the week, for all their muesli and ethical washing-up liquid.

            It’s arse covering in the sense of preparation for what is to come.

          • zoot

            Yes, all now attempting to cover their tracks. Mr Speaker, as you detail below, just one pitiful example.

  • Brian Red

    Lindsay Hoyle, Commons Speaker, is trying to keep his correspondence with Zionists secret.

    In the parlance, he has “blocked publication” of emails he sent to the Zionist embassy, the Labour Friends of Israel, and leading figures in the Occupation regime’s parliament.

    The truth is that the Speaker’s office has been “in our (ZOG) hands” since Bercow ran for it in June 2009, when he promised in his “manifesto” to reach out to “a range of public institutions and voluntary bodies”. The reason for the vacancy was the job that had been done using the Daily Telegraph, which the journalistic herd calls “the MPs’ expenses scandal”.

    Events went like this:

    * Dec 2008 to Jan 2009 – Gaza massacre

    * Dec 2008 – planning of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (ICCA)

    Note this one carefully. What on earth is an inter-parliamentary coalition? Can someone tell me? National parliaments are supposed to legislate and to hold “the executive” to account. They’re not supposed to be campaigning organisations, or to agree “informal” laws.

    * 16-17 Feb 2009 The founding conference of the ICCA was held in London with participation by the British government

    * May-June 2009 The Daily Telegraph is used to bring many MPs into disgrace, including the Commons Speaker, Michael Martin. Imagine the sheer amount of bribes and threats that must have been going on for several months prior. Never forget: information is power. Is it becoming clear what this operation was all about yet?

    * May 2009 – Michael Martin resigns

    * June 2009 – Bercow publishes his “manifesto”

    https://conservativehome.blogs.com/files/the-speakership-in-the-twenty-first-century.pdf

    So yeah Hoyle you twat, you better make sure your dealings with a foreign power are kept under wraps – you need your “privacy”, right?

    Imagine now being in MI5… Hey, doesn’t this give the foreign power some leverage? Huhhh?

    I wonder whether Hoyle will be dropped at some point, joining the list of many non-Jewish political figures who have done all sorts of dirt to help the Zionists throughout their lives, but who in the end get discarded like garbage – and then maybe they even make a few critical noises (as Robin Cook did), but no-one’s listening.

    There’s a lesson here for anyone thinking of going into politics with honest intentions – don’t bother.

  • Brian Red

    The British media may well show protestors wearing keffiyehs and talking about “human rights” when it comes to the carefully chosen time and the first film is shown of the “one in, one out” dumping of immigrants back to France.

    Or if they don’t, Palestine will be the item reported immediately before or after the dumping.

    The dumping will be hailed as a moment of truth, of things finally being addressed, but many Brexit types will say it doesn’t go far enough, it’s only window dressing, why aren’t boats being sunk, Mohammed is the most popular baby boy’s name now, why are whites putting up with this, etc. In any case watch for what items the film of the dumping is juxtaposed with.

  • Marilyn Shepherd

    Sounds just like the piece of shit who kept Assange jailed, I hope you noticed him leading the massive Sydney rally

  • Allan Howard

    I put all the following together so as to show how the PTB and their propagandists set about getting public opinion onside (in so far as they could) for proscribing PA as a terrorist organisation.

    The following clips are from a BBC News article posted on June 20th:

    Downing Street said the incident had not blocked any planned aircraft movements or stopped any operations.

    Palestine Action said the activists evaded security and claimed they had put the air-to-air refuelling tankers “out of service”.
    However, RAF engineers are assessing the damage and a defence source told the BBC they did not expect the incident to affect operations.

    RAF Brize Norton serves as the hub for UK strategic air transport and refuelling, including flights to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. The air force has conducted reconnaissance flights over Gaza out of the Cyprus base.

    The MoD told the BBC that RAF Voyager aircraft had not been involved in refuelling or supporting Israeli Air Force jets.

    A spokesman said Voyagers have been used in the Middle East to refuel RAF Typhoon jets involved in the ongoing international efforts to tackle the so-called Islamic State group in eastern Iraq and Syria.
    They have also been used in the Red Sea in the past in operations against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

    Then you had all the rhetoric. And this was at the time, and there was no doubt lots more in the lead up to the proscription:

    Lord West, Labour minister for UK security and former head of the Royal Navy, said earlier that while he was not aware of the full details, the break-in was “extremely worrying”.

    “We can’t allow thing like this to happen at all,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, adding that breaches like it were “really a problem” for national security.

    Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the security breach was “deeply concerning”.
    “This is not lawful protest, it is politically motivated criminality,” she said in a statement.
    “We must stop tolerating terrorist or extremist groups that seek to undermine our society.”

    Greg Bagwell – a former RAF deputy commander – said that in targeting the Voyager, the activists picked “a strange target”.
    Air Marshall Bagwell, now a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), told the BBC “those aircraft do not do what these protesters think they do. They’re largely used for moving passengers or fuel”.
    He added that Voyagers had “the wrong connectors” that would stop them being used to help refuel Israeli or US jets, as the action group suggested.

    Shadow armed forces minister Mark Francois told the BBC any attempt to interfere with the engines of large aircraft was “totally reprehensible”.

    The local Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard described the activists’ actions as “stupid and dangerous”.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24nppdx0lo

    In a Times of Israel article posted on June 20th, it says the following:

    The UK defense ministry said in December 2023 that it would conduct surveillance flights over Gaza to aid in hostage recovery efforts following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, assault in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people when killed and 251 were taken hostage.

    It denied at the time that it was carrying out the flights for any other purpose, and stressed that the surveillance aircraft would be “unarmed, do not have a combat role, and will be tasked solely to locate hostages.”

    The flights are said to have continued until now, and UK Defense Secretary John Healey reiterated to investigative journalism group Declassified UK last week that the only intelligence passed on to Israel from the surveillance flights is “linked to finding and helping freed hostages.”

    PA were also referred to as anti-Israel activists, in both the headline and at the beginning of the article:

    Anti-Israel activists damage, spray red paint on planes at UK military base
    https://www.timesofisrael.com/anti-israel-activists-damage-spray-red-paint-on-planes-at-uk-military-base/

    The following clips are from a Sky News article posted on June 20th, the first of which comes near the beginning of the article:

    Downing Street has now confirmed security is being reviewed across the “whole defence estate” – but stressed the incident did not disrupt any operations.

    A source said the vandals had also “punctured” the back of the engine. This has not been confirmed.

    A senior RAF source said the aircraft have nothing to do with Israel’s war in Gaza.

    If necessary, the RAF has access to four additional Voyager aircraft to replenish the total number of the operational fleet under a deal with the defence company Airbus.

    A senior RAF source told Sky News: “The claims made by the group who broke into RAF Brize Norton show a complete lack of understanding of how the RAF operates and what these aircraft do.

    “The UK is not supporting Israeli operations and these aircraft have not been used in support of Israeli forces in any shape or form.”

    And the rhetoric (which was also in the ToI article, and no doubt just about all coverage) which is of course total bollox, but was no doubt effective to a large extent:

    On X, the prime minister condemned the “act of vandalism”, adding: “Our Armed Forces represent the very best of Britain and put their lives on the line for us every day. It is our responsibility to support those who defend us.”

    https://news.sky.com/story/pro-palestinian-activists-break-into-raf-base-and-vandalise-aircraft-13386065

    Yeah, and ESPECIALLY support the private companies who own the planes and no doubt make a lot of dosh for themselves and their shareholders out of renting them out to the RAF, which the vast majority of the population don’t have a clue about of course because, for obvious reasons, they keep schtum about it.

    And add to all this the claim made by the home secretary, as in the following clip, which I posted in a comment yesterday (up the page):

    The spokesperson [Starmer’s official spokesperson] added: “The home secretary previously said that those who seek to support this group may yet not know the true nature of this organisation, but people should be under no illusion this is not a peaceful or non-violent protest group.”

    Oh, and I almost forgot the complete and utter shite about PA being financed by Iran. Needless to say, if the group was funded by Iran we would have heard about it long before now, or are we supposed to believe that MI5/6/7/8/9 only just found out about it very recently, and so conveniently. Anyway, the point I’m making of course re all of the above is that all the rhetoric and the falsehood that it would cost £millions/seven million to repair the damage to the planes etc, etc, etc, was all concocted and contrived to get public opinion onside to proscribe the group in so far as it could, but had the media been sympathetic to PA and supportive of its action(s), and dismissive of all the B/S being dissembled, then I have no doubt whatsoever that the vast majority of people would have been outraged and totally opposed to Starmer and Co proscribing the group as a terrorist organisation.

    • Ian

      That clip of Cooper trying to justify her undemocratic, unjustified and scurrilous decision to proscribe an organisation which her own officials told her was no danger, and not a terrorist organisation, was the end of her and Starmer’s last shreds of credibility, honesty and integrity. As you say, the sudden timing of this ‘discovery’, which, by the way, she couldn’t explain to the public except to say it was ‘secret’, tells its own convenient story. And why would it be so secret, when other similar claims about financing or influence of foreign agents are routinely published and openly discussed? Because it would be easily disproved and make them a laughing stock.
      It is a classic case of a ‘tell’ – the reveal is that she is indeed acting on ‘secret’ information – except it has nothing to do with Iranians or Russians, or China. It is of course ‘information’ stovepiped to her by the Israelis, Elbit and/or the Americans, entirely concocted to achieve this result. But she has make a feeble diversion about where the secrecy lies, to make it sound scary to the public. Except it just sound ridiculous, childish and utterly evidence-free. So what was the extent of this diabolical subversion – they bought a tin of red paint for a couple of people? Hold the front page, who knows what those deep pockets of subversion might finance next – a tin of yellow paint, perhaps ? Oh my god, the horror, the horror.
      The spinelessness of this government, when faced with some minor criminal damage to protest our role in a genocide, is off the scale. Even the Tories didn’t go this far. But apparently Cooper and Starmer feel the need to demonstrate their loyalty to the new imperialism of the Trump/Netanyahu axis and corporate military interests. And the citizens of the UK, and their human rights, can take a hike. And now, what a surprise, they are turning the heat up and threatening to jail hundreds of people who will be protesting the ban, protesting the genocide, on the false pretext that they ‘may’ be ‘inadvertently’ supporting PA. The secret policeman’s ball is alive and well in Starmer’s goon squad politics, all smoke and mirrors to curry favour with a foreign power for which few Britons have any sympathy, given that they are war criminals. Let’s jail some elderly conscientious objectors, that’ll show ’em how tough we are, and how we wilfully ignore the massacre of defenceless people, half of them children. Even Israeli historians and some journalists are begging the West to stop supporting genocide, which is all PA wanted to do. I suppose they should be arrested too if they come here. Instead of the actual criminals who breeze in and out of the country.

  • Ray

    Starmer and crew are caught totally by the lobby – its powers over media, police, courts are only rivalled by its control of government.

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