In the coming days, the United Kingdom government is moving full steam ahead to proscribe Palestine Action – a movement of young people with a conscience – as a terrorist group. Some of its members are already behind bars; others face trials or await sentencing. Yet, despite the “terrorist” label and the threat of imprisonment, tens of thousands across the country have taken to the streets chanting, “We are all Palestine Action”.
If the government’s goal was to intimidate people into silence – to ensure British complicity in genocide continues unchecked – it has badly miscalculated. A recent poll found that 55 percent of Britons are against Israel’s war on Gaza. A significant number of those opponents – 82 percent – said Israel’s actions amount to genocide. Something fundamental is shifting. There is a gaping disconnect between the media’s narrative and the views of common people, who reject ministerial spin and the framing of resistance to tyranny and fascism as terrorism.
Like the defiant youth of Palestine Action, I too was once branded a terrorist. In 1981, I was a member of the United Black Youth League. We knew building petrol bombs was legally “wrong”, but we believed in our right to defend our community – even by armed means – against fascist threats in Bradford. Arrested alongside 11 others, I faced terrorism charges carrying life sentences in what became known as the Bradford 12 case.
While our struggle was against local fascists, Palestine Action’s fight is nobler: exposing and halting a genocide in Palestine, carried out by Israel’s neo-fascist regime with British support. And unlike us, they have not taken up arms. Where we built crude weapons in self-defence against immediate violence, Palestine Action has used only nonviolent direct action – spray-painting warplanes, occupying factories, and disrupting business as usual – to confront British complicity in genocide. I recognise their rage – I have gone hoarse screaming about genocide myself. How many burning children must we see to know it is wrong? How many starving families must be slaughtered to sustain an apartheid state?
The pain is sharper knowing the weapons murdering Palestinians are made in Britain. It is worse watching hypocritical politicians twist words – from Keir Starmer justifying genocide early on, to now hiding behind hollow phrases like “Israel’s right to defend itself”. But as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese and many others have repeatedly clarified: “Israel has no right to defend itself against those it occupies.”
If the UK government succeeds, anyone associated with Palestine Action will be branded a “terrorist”. During the Bradford 12 trial, we were painted the same way. Like Palestine Action activists, we had, in our own time, fought for a more just and fairer world.
Palestine Action emerged from the failure of endless protests demanding an end to never-ending wars and justice for Palestine. As they state: “Palestine Action is a direct action movement committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime. Using disruptive tactics, we target enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex, making it impossible for them to profit from Palestinian oppression.”
We, the Bradford 12, were born from the police’s failure to protect us from fascist violence. We took armed self-defence into our own hands in an organised community defence. To do nothing would have been the greater crime. Similarly, UK complicity in genocide demands action. Disrupting the war machine is not criminal; it is a moral necessity.
At our 1982 trial in Leeds Crown Court, tens of thousands mobilised to demand our acquittal. They saw through the state’s lies – they knew convicting us would unleash repression against youth movements, trade unions, and anyone fighting for justice. The jury faced a pivotal question: What kind of world do you want to live in if you acquit these men? I testified that, faced with the same threats, we would do it all again. That question echoes today; if Palestine Action is criminalised, we risk slipping into a lawless world where genocide becomes the norm, not the exception.
We were acquitted, establishing a legal precedent for armed community self-defence. Palestine Action needs no precedent to justify its cause, because its actions are already grounded in legality, morality, and nonviolence. It is not a threat – it is a moral compass. The UK must follow it, not ban it.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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