12 Rules For What

Recently, the protest group Palestine Action was proscribed by the Labour government under counter terror legislation putting the group in the same category as Al Quaida, ISIS and National Action. This is stunning attack on the right to protest and will have wider implications for the palestine solidarity movement, and other movements that sometimes break the law in pursuing their political goals – which we should remember has a long history in UK protest movements. On the surface this seems to be outside the remit of this podcast, so why are we covering this? For one thing the British state has used the proscription of far right and fascist groups to give a veneer of acceptability this action. Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, proscribed two far right groups alongside Palestine Action. But also there is a more fundamental issue here. We cannot divorce the actions and policies of far right governments from those of their liberal democratic counter parts. The British state continues to send fighter jet p