Dan Jarvis rose with the pained air of a man trying to perform an impossible balancing act. He was there to defend the government’s proscription of Palestine Action. The main impact of this has been the arrest of hundreds and hundreds of people for holding up signs saying they support the group. Ministers couldn’t have been more successful at raising its profile if they’d issued personal endorsements.
Making matters worse is the tense atmosphere around questions of free speech at the moment, with complaints on every side about who has and hasn’t been arrested. In 1999 Jarvis was an officer in the Parachute Regiment in the middle of a stand-off in Kosovo, with the Americans demanding British troops confront Russian forces. It’s possible he now feels nostalgic for the relaxed simplicity of those days.
The security minister radiates solidity and reasonableness. “Anyone who wishes to demonstrate about the humanitarian situation in Gaza or the actions of any government, including our own, has the absolute freedom to gather with others and voice their views,” he began. “But supporting Palestine and supporting a prescribed terrorist organisation are not the same thing.”
The government’s difficulty is that while people might feel Palestine Action aren’t very pleasant, not many are persuaded that they’re actual terrorists. Jarvis did his best to change our minds: “Members have been charged with violent disorder, grievous bodily harm with intent, actual bodily harm, criminal damage and aggravated burglary charges.” That all sounds pretty nasty, but is it terrorism?
As all ministers in this government tend to when they’re in trouble, Jarvis retreated to the shelter of “advice”. It would have been “highly irresponsible” not to listen to security assessments, he said. Although it’s possible the advisors didn’t foresee how this was going to play out. At some point, Labour are going to have to accept the possibility that sometimes the advice they get is bad.
Up in the gallery, we were baffled
Certainly MPs were unimpressed. Labour’s Stella Creasy, who’d raised the issue, pointed out that in recent weeks the police have taken a more relaxed attitude to protesters outside asylum hotels holding signs calling for the occupants to be killed. Her colleague Bell Ribeiro-Addy asked why people holding signs were arrested when “political pundits and columnists seem free to discuss Palestine Action without fear of criminal prosecution”. Even as the sketchwriters feared we might be rounded up for simply taking notes, she pointed out that her own view was that no one should be arrested.
Again and again Jarvis said that the government was happy for people to protest, it just didn’t want them to support Palestine Action. Another Labour MP, Alex Sobel, put his finger on one of the reasons proscribing the group had backfired. “Looking at the famine in Gaza and the planned annexation of West Bank with a sense of complete desperation and a lack of agency,” he said, “people want to demonstrate that desperation through peaceful protest.” When you can’t change anything, perhaps getting arrested feels like an achievement.
Finally we heard from Reform’s Richard Tice. Those of us lucky enough to attend his party’s conference over the weekend came away with one clear message: Reform stands for the right to protest. Whether you’re a joyful patriot daubing a cross on every white surface or a loving mum calling for us to just set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards, Reform are your guys! Hey, coppers, police the streets, not the tweets!
Although … it turns out that the issue is a little more subtle than we had understood. “Can I thank and congratulate the police for arresting successfully so many hundreds of people who broke the law and shockingly supported a proscribed terrorist organisation,” Tice began. Up in the gallery, we were baffled. Could it be that Reform believe that there are people who should be handcuffed simply for expressing an opinion? Apparently they do. We wondered if we’d missed the bit of Nigel Farage’s testimony in Washington last week where he’d said Britain wasn’t enough like North Korea.
Anyway, presumably the champions of Lucy Connolly don’t believe people should actually be taken to court, simply for holding up a sign? Tice went on: “Does the minister expect them to be charged and prosecuted to ensure a proper deterrent?” Behind him Shockat Adam, one of the independent MPs elected on a pro-Gaza ticket, couldn’t suppress a smile at the sheer shamelessness of it.
It’s tricky stuff, this freedom of expression. Nuanced. Tweeting that you want to set asylum seekers on fire is good, but holding up a sign saying you support Palestine Action is bad. Should Reform ever win power, the poor cops won’t know what to do. We can only hope that Tice and Farage will issue the police some kind of clear guidance so that they can easily tell which people to round up.
