Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine have issued the following statement about in response to the Government’s decision to proscribe “Palestine Action”.
The Liberal Democrats are the party of civil liberties. We oppose government overreach and seek to defend the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. The UK Government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation poses a grave threat to these fundamental rights and represents a dangerous expansion of counterterrorism
powers.
The definition of terrorism is intended to cover acts that cause death, serious personal injury or hostage taking. Palestine Action is a non violent direct-action group targeting companies complicit in the Israeli military-industrial complex. Its methods include occupying premises and damaging factory or military equipment. The persons accused of the actions at Brize Norton
were not charged with terrorism offences. LDFP believes that existing criminal legislation more than covers their actions and any offences should be dealt with as a criminal matter.
This would be the first time the UK has proscribed a group based solely on property damage. Such a move risks setting a dangerous precedent in which any politically inconvenient protest could be treated as terrorism. That is wrong in principle and threatens to erode the space for legitimate political dissent.
If Palestine Action is proscribed, then members and supporters could face up to 14 years’ imprisonment. Individuals could be jailed merely for expressing their support for the group, wearing a logo affiliated with them, or sharing a post endorsing their work on social media. This is a grossly disproportionate response. It would have a chilling effect on the ability of UK citizens to campaign for Palestinian rights and speak out against UK complicity in Israeli war crimes.
Many see this as a calculated distraction from the government, including from the massive breach of security at the base at a time of high risk due to the Iran-Israel war. But it is also a distraction from Israel’s atrocities on Palestinians in Gaza, including systematic killing, starvation, and forced dispossession. We must not allow our attention to be diverted. Instead of targeting protest groups at home, the UK Government should focus on upholding
international law and using every means available to help end Israel’s atrocities.
The Liberal Democrats are committed to upholding democracy, human rights, and international law. The proscription of Palestine Action undermines those values. We urge all Liberal Democrat parliamentarians to actively oppose it.
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12 Comments
I very much welcome this announcement by the LDFP.
I am one of many people who recently joined Palestine Action online, and although I have never taken part in disruptive action myself, and have no immediate plans to do so, it appears that Yvette Cooper has decided that I could now be arrested, and sent to prison, for up to 14 years. What a sad state we have got into, all because our government refuses to stop being complicit in what most people call genocide.
This seems to have been posted late. The vote on proscribing them was last Wednesday.
Not one single lib dem MP voted against it.
David
In fairness they abstained – and it is easy to see a logic to that. (In fact several voted for and against – to do what is sometimes known as a “positive abstention”.)
Annoyingly, the order was actually to proscribe three organisations: Palestine Action, Manics Murder Cult and Russian Imperial Movement. The order was unamendable. Some might say that this was a cynical move by the government.
By voting against, the Liberal Democrats would be down on record as being against proscribing Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement – neo Nazi, fascist, violent groups.
So abstaining seemed to be the best alternative, to note opposition to the Palestine Action (as strongly articulated by Lisa Smart, Alistair Carmichael, Andrew George and others in the parliamentary debate on the order) while not voting against the proscription for the neo-Nazi groups.
You cannot wreck war planes, our stock is low enough already. What were they thinking.
Supposed they did that in say 1943 to Bombers on the airfield, it would probably have best construed as Treason!
Well done to LDFP and those of our MPs who have been brave enough to challenge the proscription of Palestine Action.
I expect our MPS to defend civil liberties and they should have opposed a law which put non violent protest in same category as openly violent groups who as far as I can see are currently mostly active in US and Russia, therefore not an imminent threat here. Plenty of time for a new law agaist those groups. I hope they are ashamed that this law led to the arrest of an 83 year old retired priest.
Pamela, they did oppose the proscription in the speeches. If they had voted against they would have fallen into Labour’s trap and written a thousand opposition leaflets saying “Lib Dems soft on neo-Fascist murderous groups”.
@Paul Walter
That might explain it were it not for the fact that our party in the house of lords did have the opportunity to vote for a green party amendment to express the houses dissatisfaction with proscribing Palestine action, which a measley 4 of our 77 peers voted for!
One Lord Monroe Palmer voted against.
This means the main issue has to be with our party. Not Labour’s cynical games (which didn’t scare off the Green party or independents, not even the ones with more right wing constituents)
Details on the lord’s vote here:
https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/lords/division/3339
Congrats to the four peers with actual Liberal principles.
To be clear this is not about whether damaging military aircraft should be illegal or even how illegal this should be. This is about whether belonging to an organisation that has done this, or so much as verbally expressing support for said organisation should be illegal.
This even extends to criminalising individuals who don’t actually support damaging military aircraft but are willing to express support for the organisation in spite of this.
@paulwalter
They will do that anyway. Such Labour attack leaflets rarely have much allegiance that nuanced truth. If you are going to be a liberal party that stands for anything meaningful it is next to impossible to take a stance that can’t be misrespresentaed as soft on terrorism/extremism/crime/whatver.
But if that is your fear why did you write – the day after the proscription SI was laid before the house so it was known what it contained – “Liberal Democrat parliamentarians should vote against the proscription of Palestine Action.” rather than
“Liberal Democrat parliamentarians should express their opposition to the proscription of Palestine Action in carefully cadanced and nuanced ways to avoid the risks of being portratyed as ‘soft of terrorism’ by the Labour Government”
@ Paul Walter….. “In fairness they abstained”.
“Fearful of a leaflet”. Not exactly a ‘brave decision’ by said parliamentarians, Paul.
Reminds me of an old Lloyd George quote from the 1920’s, (tho’ not over all a huge fan of DLG) – “If you sit on the fence long enough, the iron enters into your soul”.
Paul Walter’s defence of the Lib Dem failure to oppose the proscription of Palestine Action is a perfect example of why politicians are held in such contempt by the public and why we as a country stand little chance of finding long term solutions to the problems we face.
Have the Lib Dems also joined Labour and the Tories in abandoning the fundamental democratic principles of doing what is morally ‘right’, rather than what is politically expedient, and acting in the best interests of the Country, not the Party?
Labour might well accuse the Lib Dems of being ‘soft on murderous fascist groups’, but that seems to me to be much easier position to defend than the current reality that the Party’s leadership considers anyone who supports a non-violent organisation protesting against the UK Government’s complicity in genocide and ongoing war crimes to be a ‘terrorists’ who should receive the same level of punishment as members of ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the IRA.