Israel is mounting an offensive to take over parts of Gaza. Millions of Britons of all ethnicities and faiths feel angry and dismayed. This feels similar to the build-up to the illegitimate Iraq War. All that we conscientious citizens can do is march, or speak out in public spaces, and cry in private.
Peter Tatchell, lifelong human rights activist, has joined pro-Palestinian demos week after week. Then this happened: on Saturday he was arrested for holding a placard that condemned the horrific actions of the Israeli government and also Hamas’s persecution of dissenters.
I spoke to him on Sunday. A few marchers were incensed by the anti-Hamas message. Officers pulled him out and accused him of shouting, “Hamas are terrorists”, which he unequivocally denied. Fellow demonstrators backed him up.
When he tried to rejoin the crowd, several officers grabbed and cuffed him, took him off to Charing Cross police station, fingerprinted and photographed him and kept him in a cell for five hours and 38 minutes.
He was then released without charge: “My arrest and prolonged detention was justified by the police on the absurd grounds that it was to prevent me from causing physical injury to myself or any other person. I have been a non-violent human rights defender for over 58 years.”
People on all sides of the debate are also feeling the hands of the state tightening around them. The Daily Telegraph recently ran a story about Julian Foulkes, a retired special constable from Gillingham, who was arrested and handcuffed after his post on X was deemed “unacceptable” by Kent police.
Someone on X had attacked Suella Braverman for calling pro-Palestinian demos “hate marches”. Foulkes responded: “One step away from storming Heathrow looking for Jewish arrivals”, and was, like Tatchell, whisked into a disturbing law and order vortex.
Social censorship is getting worse, too. The BBC’s peerless football pundit Gary Lineker has been forced out after reposting on Instagram a pro-Palestinian post with an antisemitic symbol, which he says he failed to see or understand. He apologised and deleted it. But now he has left the corporation.
Censorship is spreading quietly across all aspects of our lives. An Index on Censorship survey last year found 28 of 53 librarians polled had been asked to remove books from library shelves, mostly LGBTQ+ titles. In more than half of those cases, the objectors got what they wanted. In a 2023 study by Cilip, readers demanded the removal of LGBTQ+ books as well as works on race and Empire.
square SIMON KELNER Disagreeing is what being Jewish is all about
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Climate change activists are getting atrociously long sentences for doing what they can to save the planet. Amy Cameron of Greenpeace rightly asks: “What sort of country locks people away for years for planning a peaceful demonstration, let alone for talking about it on a Zoom call? We’re giving a free hand to the polluting elite robbing us of a habitable planet while jailing those who’re trying to stop them – it makes no sense.”
Control is quietly being given to or taken by the powerful in all areas of life. In private and public workplaces, employees are banned from expressing their personal views outside work. A GP surgery nurse I know has been sacked for tweeting about the suffering of Gazans.
In 2022, some of my fellow members of the Society of Authors plotted to remove the then chair Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, because she wasn’t anti-trans enough. They lost the vote. But left a stench of intolerance.
The nation has just marked VE Day, with all newspapers and broadcasters paying homage to those who died so we could be free. But we are not free. We think we are or must be, because, you know, that’s what it means to be British.
Too many Brits have been comfortably uninformed about how our political thoughts and views are regulated by the powerful and by public pressure. That can’t go on. Resistance is a duty. Stop them stealing our ancient rights. We owe that to coming generations.
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