Owen Jones on Palestine Action high court win – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:12Do we really think history is going to look back at the sight of thousands of people, including grannies, being arrested for holding placards, opposing genocide, and look back and think, well, that was an episode to be proud of? I think it's going to go down as a very shameful episode, and I think it's quite obvious in the here and now. The UK government's ban on a Palestinian campaign group under terrorism legislation has been found unlawful in a dramatic ruling by the High Court in London. When a government applies the term, legally speaking, terrorism, to movements, organisations and individuals which are clearly not terrorists, a red line has been crossed.

0:49That is a red line where you cross into some degree of authoritarianism. Judges at the High Court have ruled that the government's prescription of Palestine action as a terror group is unlawful. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoff.

1:08I'm joined by Owen Jones, Guardian columnist. Thank you for being with us. It's great to have you on the show. Thanks for dialling in. Great to see you. Great to see you too. So we're speaking on this pretty extraordinary day. Palestine action, which was prescribed by the government in the summer of last year in July, putting it in the same group as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, various neo-Nazis groups, that has been ruled unlawful in the High Court. We'll come on to the detail because it's not clear cut, is it? The government are still saying effectively the ban remains in place and that they plan to appeal.

1:40But nonetheless, this is a huge legal victory for Huda Ramori and the other activists involved in this case. Yeah, a historic victory. And I think what's so striking about it is, I mean, in the judgment, it says they engage in criminal activity for which normal criminal law exists. You know, if you engage in property damage, you do expect to get arrested. The question of what is unlawful, of course, which is what Shabana Mahmood has said about Palestine action in terms of the appeal, which has been submitted by the government. The point many people would make is, as even her cabinet colleagues privately say, we're streeting, Israel is committing war crimes.

2:18And so I guess what people wrestle with, with their conscience or should do, is if I believe that my government is facilitating war crimes and indeed genocide, which is what the consensus of genocide scholars think is happening, is it reasonable to break the law in those circumstances? And I point out that jury after jury have wrestled with that very question, which is one of the reasons that Palestine action activists have been repeatedly acquitted when they've been dragged before the courts, which makes you wonder, maybe that's one reason they want to scrap trial by jury. But there are, of course, six people linked to Palestine action who are in prison, being held in custody, awaiting trial.

2:59Many of them have been on rolling hunger strikes in the last few months that ended in January. But there are serious questions about the existing convictions and charges. Those people, but then also the thousands arrested, 500 of which have been charged under this legislation introduced last July. It's extraordinary, isn't it? We've got up to 3 ,000 people approaching. So we're between 2 ,700 and 3 ,000 arrested for holding placards reading, I oppose genocide, I support Palestine action, which is what the placards say. Many of those are elderly, many of them disabled. I mean, the sight of blind disabled people being dragged by police officers as though they're hardened criminals into police fans.

3:40One of them, an 83-year-old retired vicar. And, you know, if you look back at the suffragettes, who were secular saints now, but at the time reviled by much, well, certainly by the political and media elites, treated as terrible terrorists. They actually engaged in far more extreme action than Palestine Action did. And many of those MPs who voted to prescribe Palestine action dressed up in the garbs of the suffragettes just before they did in homage to the suffragettes. But in this particular case, do we really think, given where public opinion is at, most Britons think Israel has committed war crimes.

4:15Most Britons think we should have an arms embargo. Most Britons, according to the poll, think Netanyahu, the prime minister, should be arrested for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Do we really think history is going to look back at the sight of thousands of people, including grannies, being arrested for holding placards, opposing genocide, whilst the government was providing crucial components for Israeli fighter jets and look back and think, well, that was an episode to be proud of? I think it's going to go down as a very shameful episode. And I think it's quite obvious in the here and now.

4:44Yeah. And the decision to use counter-terror legislation at that time was disquieting to those Labour MPs who voted against it, but others did vote for it. with concerns that they held more privately, we might see some of that criticism start to emerge. But it was not just disquieting for activists in support of Palestine. It was also legal experts who felt that there was a massive overreach of this type of counter-terror legislation to effectively silence protest, restrict freedom of speech. And the judges today seem to have agreed with that argument. Exactly, and which is the point they made about how it violates or interferes with rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and free associations with others, you do not need an overactive imagination to see where this precedent, if not challenged, can lead.

5:36Because when a government applies the term, legally speaking, terrorism, to movements, organizations, and individuals, which are clearly not terrorists, a red line has been crossed. That is a red line where you cross into some degree of authoritarianism. And you don't need an overactive imagination to think, if, for example, reform formed the next government with Nigel Farage as prime minister, how that precedent could be built on where you apply counter-terror legislation against dissidents. And we've already seen that. I mean, under the last Labour government, I'm afraid to say, we saw a Holocaust survivor, Walter Wolfgang, be dragged out and then questioned anti-terror law when he heckled the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

6:22And we've already seen other counter-terror legislation used. This was just the most extreme example, which obviously interferes with freedom of speech to the degree, look, I work for a mainstream newspaper. When I wrote a column after the prescription, obviously, the brilliant Guardian lawyers had to do all their due diligence and make sure that I, a newspaper columnist writing for a mainstream publication was not arrested with a potential prison sentence of what for 14 years for writing a column about a group engaged in direct action. But that's obviously where this leads. It damages the very fabric of democracy.

7:01And likewise, the novelist Sally Rooney, who has vocally expressed her support for Palestine action and says that her books could be banned from being sold here and she could face arrest because of that vocal support. But Owen, moving forward, Shabana Mahmood has expressed her disappointment, to quote her, about this decision and the government has already launched its appeal. Do you think we're likely to see any more information about what the government had in its arsenal when it decided to prescribe Palestine action? Because what we heard from Yvette Cooper at that time was opaque, to say the least.

7:34And people do still want answers about why Palestine action was banned in the first instance. Very searching questions need to be asked there. One, about how the media were fed lines linking Palestine Action to Iran, which was then raised in a BBC interview by the BBC presenter. No basis for that whatsoever. I think another really important question to be asked actually is about Donald Trump, because last year, Palestine Action targeted his Turnberry golf course up in Scotland. He denounced them at the time publicly as terrorists. and he also at the time said that he expressed hope, sorry, that they would be treated harshly.

8:13He said he discussed it with Keir Starmer and we know because the court was told that there were two different conversations between Keir Starmer and Donald Trump. It's extremely obviously opaque at the moment, but, you know, I think we just have to have a searching debate and discussion as a democracy where we've ended up with some of the worst possible crimes imaginable, literally before our eyes to describe West Streeting, the health secretary, his private conversation with Peter Mandelson, and those who have faced accountability and justice, are grannies and disabled people and other people holding placards opposing those crimes.

8:52The world has been turned, I think, very clearly on its head. And I think the court of history will be very clear about who did what at this time. But I wouldn't, if I were Shabana Mahmood and other politicians, I'd be thinking very carefully ahead in the future about the legal implications for those who facilitated one of the great crimes of our age. And while this debate, this conversation about domestic legislation plays out here in the UK, we should remind ourselves of what is happening in Gaza, where the health ministry there say 556 people have been killed since the introduction of the so-called ceasefire in October of last year.

9:30And that is in addition to the 70 ,000 people killed in figures that Israel now accepts are accurate. I mean, you know, 13 year old boys are being killed as they gather firewood for their family as things stand. If Hamas, for example, killed one Israeli civilian, which is a crime in that period, no one would be talking about a ceasefire. But hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since then. Palestinians are living in apocalyptic conditions. They're still, you know, in terms of deprived of shelter. They're living in tents, intolerable conditions now for, what, two and a half years getting on for.

10:05The infrastructure destroyed and the live question about whether or not there will be an attempt to expel the surviving population, which is what Donald Trump has openly discussed. And of course, Benjamin Netanyahu as well. So the future of the Palestinian people in Gaza should be front and centre and the role of Western states in their plight, both current and past. But instead, of course, there has been an attempt to criminalise those who have opposed this crime. And this is just one example, because others have been deplatformed, fired, threatened, menaced. In America, of course, attempt to deport people.

10:40It's the worst assault on free speech in the Western world since Joseph McCarthy sat in the chair of the House of Un-American Activities in the 1950s. And this is one example of that assault on free speech. and of course that attempt to attack free speech is to turn the world on its head, to make those who stood against the crime the dangerous extremists and those who facilitated the crime the reasonable statesmen. I think history will have a different view. Yeah. Owen, very powerful stuff. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me. Big pleasure. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Owen Jones, a Guardian columnist.

11:16Keep up with his work over at theguardian.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest, the new evening edition of Today in Focus. Today in Focus will be back with you on Monday morning and we'll be with you on Monday night. Have a lovely weekend. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Bryony Moore and Paul Owen. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin. The lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

11:45This is The Guardian.