People take part in a pro-Palestine march in central London, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, February 17, 2024
PALESTINE solidarity campaigners told Home Secretary James Cleverly today they will not stop marching — rebuffing his demand for an end to the demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Mr Cleverly, desperate to bring a halt to the protests which brought down his predecessor Suella Braverman and have shaken the establishment, said the marches should stop as they had “made their point” — the latest government attempt to halt the movement.
But the six organisations which have come together to organise the solidarity movement made it clear that they would not consider pausing their campaigning until there was at least a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Instead, at a Westminster press conference, they united to slam the mounting assault on the right to protest being conducted by the government and other right-wing politicians.
“There is a growing attack on the right to protest,” Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal told the press conference.
“Demonising the protesters for Palestinian rights by pro-Israeli politicians serves to deflect attention from Israel’s genocide.”
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Left MP John McDonnell criticised proposals being circulated to insulate politicians from mass protests.
He said: “This is the operation of our democracy. We should welcome it and be proud of it.”
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claims “There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule. And we’ve got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently.” First, quick version of this image is likely to change.
Ministers and senior police sign ‘democratic policing protocol’ to control protests outside parliament, town halls and parties’ offices
Activists covered Rishi Sunak’s mansion in oil black fabric in August last year. Photograph: Greenpeace/Getty Images
Downing Street said ministers and senior police agreed to sign up to a new “democratic policing protocol” that would see police treat demonstrations outside MPs homes as “intimidatory”, a minimum standard of police response to demonstrations against MPs and guidance for officers policing protests and other “democratic” events.
During the meeting Sunak told police chiefs they had to demonstrate they would use the powers they already have, saying it was “vital for maintaining public confidence in the police”.
In a stark assessment of the UK’s political processes, he added: “There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule. And we’ve got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently.
“But we also need to demonstrate more broadly to the public that you will use the powers you already have, the laws that you have.”
He said the policing protocol, which commits forces to additional patrols and “provides clarity that protests at elected representatives’ homes should be treated as intimidatory”, would protect democratic rule.
dizzy: Politics is by it’s very nature confrontational and argumentative between opposing parties and perspectives. People are going to disagree and demonstrate that disagreement. There is plenty to object to with Sunak’s party and politics – his continuing destruction of the climate, cheerleading and actual support of – actual complicity in – Israel’s Gaza genocide, relentless attacks on democracy and the right to protest, further destroying the NHS, failing to tax the rich, etc. Sunak shouldn’t be in politics – and he actually won’t be soon – if he’s not willing to tolerate that.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman at a ‘Stand With Israel’ rally in London’s Trafalgar Square in January 2024. Braverman’s Home Office sent a letter to police chiefs warning of a potential rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel but did not even consider sending a similar letter about rising Islamophobia, new documents reveal. Both communities experienced significant rises in hate crime as the conflict in the Middle East escalated | Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Government spoke about threat of antisemitism but did not consider making equivalent warning about anti-Muslim hate
The Home Office appears to have given no consideration to the threat of Islamophobic hate crime in the wake of Hamas’s attacks on Israel, despite warning chief constables about the “obvious risk” of rising antisemitism, openDemocracy can reveal.
It comes as the government is embroiled in a row about its perceived unequal treatment of antisemitism and Islamophobia. Incidents of both have soared since 7 October.
Oxford councillor Shaista Aziz said Muslim women were particularly at risk from rising hate crime, and told openDemocracy that the Home Office’s lack of action was “outrageous, yes, horrific, yes, but not surprising”.
On 10 October, then home secretary Suella Braverman wrote to police chiefs in England and Wales urging them to watch for rising antisemitism, particularly on pro-Palestinian marches.
The letter asked police to consider whether holding a Palestinian flag on a march or singing “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” could be considered a terrorist offence.
But requests made by openDemocracy under the Freedom of Information Act found that the Home Office held no evidence of any meetings, phone calls, emails or briefing papers from the same period of time regarding the possibility of publishing a similar letter about hate towards Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups.
Aziz said: “It sends a very clear message to British Muslims that ‘you’re not a priority for us,’ as opposed to: ‘You are facing a sustained rise in violence and extremism, and it’s our job as a government to put things in place to ensure that people are protected.’”
The independent councillor, who quit Labour in October in protest at Keir Starmer’s apparent suggestion that Israel’s attacks on Gaza were justified, also called out Labour’s own record on Islamophobia. She pointed to the fact no one had faced consequences for briefing a deeply offensive line to the press that Muslim councillors quitting the party meant Labour was “shaking off the fleas”.
Labour MP Clive Lewis told openDemocracy the “hierarchy of racism” in the government and society at large benefited only the far right. “This doesn’t help the Muslim community and it sure as hell doesn’t help the Jewish community,” he said. “This divide and rule policy is not just wrong – it’s dangerous.”
Lee Anderson, the Tories’ former deputy chair, was suspended from the Conservative Party this weekend after claiming in an appearance on GB News that “Islamists” had “got control” of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
Conservative ministers have been reluctant to criticise Anderson, who has not apologised. Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden yesterday refused to say whether his claims were Islamophobic in interviews with both the BBC and ITV, and transport secretary Mark Harper this morning again declined to call them racist – instead telling both the BBC and Sky News that they were simply “wrong”.
Anderson’s comments had echoed a column Braverman wrote in The Telegraph last week, in which she claimed that “Islamists” were “in charge” of Britain.
Braverman was forced out of office in November after she accused the police of left-leaning bias, helping incite a far-right mob to storm the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day. She is yet to face repercussions from the Conservative Party for the latest column.
Alba Kapoor, head of policy at the anti-racist Runnymede Trust charity, said: “This latest revelation shows what we have sadly already suspected: that this government has a flagrant disregard for its duty to protect Muslim communities.
“As instances of Islamophobia continue to skyrocket following last October, Muslim communities face persistent racist attacks. But instead of taking any action to challenge that, senior Conservative politicians and former cabinet members are busy stoking Islamophobic sentiment, and building divisive narratives.
“That the prime minister refuses to even call these instances out as racism is a clear sign of a government that is disgracefully failing Muslims across the country. This woeful situation will continue to cause profound harm unless meaningful action is taken to protect Muslim people at this time.”
The government stumped up funding to tackle both Islamophobia and antisemitism last year. It has committed £29.4m a year to providing security for mosques and Muslim schools, and £18m a year for equivalent safety measures for synagogues and Jewish schools, until 2025.
But it has had no independent adviser on Islamophobia for 20 months. Imam Qari Asim was dismissed from the role in June 2022, after being accused of backing a ban on a film that was said to exacerbate sectarian tensions between Muslims. Asim said the government’s claim that he acted to “limit free speech” was “inaccurate”.
A government spokesperson said: “There is no place for hate in our society and we condemn the recent rise in reported anti-Muslim and antisemitic hatred.
“We expect the police to fully investigate all hate crimes and work with the Crown Prosecution Service to make sure the cowards who commit these abhorrent offences feel the full force of the law.
“Following recent events, we have also made further funding available to Muslim and Jewish communities, to provide additional security at places of worship and faith schools.”
The Green Party holds that the profit motive should have no place in our health care – in any form of care
Natalie Bennett is a Green Party member of the House of Lords. She was leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012-16.
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Perhaps because it is a continuing story of disaster, there’s few stories now also about the impact of privatisation, despite the level continuing to rise. In 2022 nearly 10 per cent of treatments for NHS patients, more than 2 million people, were provided by private companies, up from 3 per cent in 2011. Yet there’s evidence that in areas where privatisation is at the highest levels the outcomes are dire – in the form of more people dying from treatable causes.
In mental health care – in the face of terribly tragedies, and much higher levels of privatisation, with public provision gutted – there’s been more attention. Now 55 per cent of under-18 inpatient mental health care is delivered by for-profit providers.
Meanwhile, we are all continuing to pay for the disaster of Labour Party-promoted Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes. That sees some hospitals paying a sixth of their total budget on payments, frequently to offshore hedge funds, and from a £13 billion original investment a final bill that will reach £80 billion, the equivalent of £1,200 for each person in the UK.
The Green Party holds that the profit motive should have no place in our health care – in any form of care – but the current largest opposition party, Labour, appears to be a fan of even further steps of privatisation.
There’s also long term underfunding, with austerity in the face of a growing and ageing population having disastrous impacts. Provision for investment on infrastructure and technology collapsed; the RAAC crisis was just one visible tip of a very large iceberg of decline.
And that austerity saw a collapse in real terms of the pay of nurses and doctors, which has seen a huge exodus overseas and to other jobs, meaning huge understaffing, which puts massive pressure on remaining staff.
Make no mistake. The state of the system is not the fault of medical staff. It is not the fault of managers. It is a long-term political failure, the application of ideology over evidence, the interests of private companies over public good.
A supporter of the “Listen to Michigan” campaign places a sign on the podium during an election night watch party in Dearborn, Michigan on February 27, 2024. (Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)
The results “represent a historic inflection point for creating a Democratic Party that aligns with the majority of its voters who want a cease-fire,” said one organizer.
More than 100,900 Michigan voters marked “uncommitted” on their ballots during the swing state’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, a signal to President Joe Biden that his continued support for Israel’s war on Gaza is angering key elements of his base and potentially threatening his reelection chances.
Leaders and supporters of the Listen to Michigan campaign made clear that their goal was not to harm Biden’s general election prospects, but rather to convince him to change course on Gaza, where the U.S.-armed Israeli military has killed nearly 30,000 people in less than five months.
In 2020, Biden defeated former President Donald Trump—his likely general election opponent in November—by 150,000 votes, and Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton four years earlier by roughly 11,000 votes.
“We need Joe Biden to listen to the voice of Michiganders,” Layla Elabed, campaign manager for Listen to Michigan and the sister of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), told reporters late Tuesday. “Listen to the voice of his core constituents and demand a permanent cease-fire now and the ending of this unconditional, unchecked funding to Israel.”
Biden handily won Michigan’s primary on Tuesday with just over 81% of the vote. But “uncommitted” garnered the support of over 13% of primary voters, beating Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and far surpassing organizers’ expectations. By comparison, fewer than 20,000 Michigan voters chose “uncommitted” in the 2020 Democratic primary.
In Hamtramck and Dearborn—cities with strong Arab American and Muslim populations—the incumbent Democratic president lost to “uncommitted” by significant margins on Tuesday. Many Michigan residents have lost family members to Israel’s war on Gaza, which the Biden administration has fueled with weapons and diplomatic support.
“Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his reelection due to the war in Gaza,” the Listen to Michigan campaign wrote on social media. “President Biden has funded the bombs falling on the family members of people who live right here in Michigan. People who voted for him, who now feel completely betrayed. President Biden, listen to Michigan. Count us out, Joe.”
“Count Michigan uncommitted for funding of war and genocide in Gaza,” the campaign continued. “While we’ve noticed a small shift in language from Biden as a direct result of this campaign’s pressure, we know that his words are not enough. This isn’t a messaging problem, this is a funding bombs problem.”
Stressing that “we don’t want a Trump presidency,” the campaign said Biden “has put [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu ahead of American democracy.”
“The only way to achieve freedom and justice for Palestinians surviving a genocide is through an immediate and permanent cease-fire. The only way to ensure the safe return of all hostages and prisoners is through an immediate and permanent cease-fire,” Listen to Michigan continued. “Our delegation plans to hold the Democratic nominee accountable to our community’s anti-war agenda at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. See you there.”
“Quite frankly, none of us want Trump to win, which is exactly why we’re doing this.”
Organizers said late Tuesday that they expect “uncommitted” to receive at least one delegate to the Democratic convention. The New York Times noted that “under Michigan’s Democratic primary rules, candidates can receive delegates by earning at least 15% of the vote in a specific congressional district.”
In a statement on the primary results, Biden thanked “every Michigander who made their voice heard today” but did not specifically acknowledge the “uncommitted” campaign, which faced last-minute attacks from a billionaire-funded AIPAC ally that is also working to unseat progressive Democratic lawmakers who have backed a cease-fire in Gaza.
A survey released Tuesday by Data for Progress found that 57% of likely U.S. voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict and 67%—including 77% of Democrats—support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.
Elabed said Tuesday that the primary results “represent a historic inflection point for creating a Democratic Party that aligns with the majority of its voters who want a cease-fire and end to unrestricted weapons funding for Israel’s war and occupation against the Palestinian people.”
Gaby Santiago-Romero, a member of the Detroit City Council and supporter of the Listen to Michigan campaign, told the Times that “we are no longer in a position to beg Democrats to listen to us.”
“Quite frankly, none of us want Trump to win, which is exactly why we’re doing this,” said Santiago-Romero. “This is the only way we can raise a flag to Democrats that you are going to lose unless you call for an ultimate cease-fire.”
