For the second week running, demonstrators were arrested for holding signs reading ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’ in Parliament Square today, with others expected to take part in later actions across the UK.
Expressing public support for Palestine Action is now a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act following the group’s proscription by home secretary Yvette Cooper. It is the first time anti-terror law, designed to ban groups like Al Qaida and Isis, has been used to designate a domestic, non-violent direct action group a terrorist organisation.
The action, organised by Defend Our Juries, aims to challenge that proscription. Further such actions are set to take place in Bristol, Manchester and Cardiff. An independently organised demonstration is also being held in Derry, and one man took ‘solo action’ by posing with a sign in the market town of Kendal in Cumbria.
One man took action alone in Kendal. (Credit unknown.)
Bill, a 76-year-old university lecturer, told Novara Media he was participating in the London action because he disagreed “with this government’s definition of a terrorist”. “I might as well call you a red bell pepper, and now you have all the legal rights of a red bell pepper,” he said. Asked how he felt about the prospect of a charge under the terrorism act, he replied, “it’s all an adventure.”
Vote Labour for Genocide.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Deputy Labour Party Leader Angela Rayner calls for police to kill and harass innocent people.
These comments by Angela Rayner identify an individual by his location. They mirror the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes who was killed because of his name to identify an individual by his location. To be clear I am saying that Jean Charles de Menezes name identifies identified a person by his location and that is why JCd was murdered. These comments by Angela Rayner use a traditional reference while the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes and the 7/7 fake-manufactured terrorism exercise used an alternative reference.
Rayner’s comments are clearly designed to be compared to the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes and by making them for the same purpose she is implicitly supporting his murder.
Unite has overwhelming voted to re-examine its relationship with Labour and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has had her Unite membership suspended over her role in the Birmingham bin strike.
Labour Government condemned
The decision was taken following an emergency motion passed at the union’s policy conference in Brighton today that condemned Birmingham’s Labour council and the Labour government for attacking the bin workers.
Birmingham council leader John Cotton and fellow Unite Birmingham councillors have also had their Unite membership suspended for their roles in effectively firing and rehiring the workers, who are striking over pay cuts of up £8,000.
Rayner backed rogue council
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite is crystal clear it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette. Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
“The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
“People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer not workers.”
Effective fire and rehire
The emergency condemned “Birmingham council for its threat to effectively fire and rehire, on pain of redundancy, the Unite Birmingham bin workers”. The Labour government is also condemned for its “support to the council and the commissioners, originally appointed by the Tories and maintained by Labour.”
It then commits the union if the redundancy process is forced through “Unite should discuss our relationship with Labour.”
Commissioners blocked deal
Birmingham’s government appointed commissioners, who, along with John Cotton, have never joined negotiations and have continually blocked deals to end the strike, answer directly to Angela Rayner.
Ms Rayner, Cotton and other the other Labour councillors have been suspended for “bringing the union into disrepute”. This will be followed by an investigation into their behaviour with a “view to expelling them from the union.”
In April, the secretary of state for local authorities toured Birmingham waste depots using strike breaking labour and insisted the strikers should accept a deal that would have seen their wages slashed.
The motion was voted on by 800 Unite delegates who represent sectors across the economy from automotive to the NHS.
Unite is the largest affiliated union to the Labour Party.
“Capitalism brings war, popular struggles build peace.” Solidarity action with workers at Paris airport, June 2025. Source: BDS France-Paris/Facebook
Worker-led actions to block military and dual-use cargo to Israel continue across Europe, defying government support for occupation and genocide.
A growing number of logistics and transport workers, along with trade unions across Europe, are taking action against military shipments to Israel as it continues its genocide in the Gaza Strip. One of the most recent examples is the refusal by airport workers in Paris, primarily organized by the trade unions SUD Aérien and CGT Roissy, to deal with military cargo destined for Israel.
“As workers in the aviation sector, we categorically refuse to participate, directly or indirectly, in logistical operations that could contribute to the crimes currently being committed in Gaza,” SUD Aérien stated.
French workers have also called for similar blockades in other locations, expressing their solidarity with Palestinians. “Refusing to transport military equipment to Israel is an act of resistance and dignity with the Palestinian people,” read a joint statement from rail, air, and transport unions in June. “We will not stay silent in the face of the collective punishment of an entire people.”
This is not the first time French transport workers have disrupted shipments to the Israeli occupation. Earlier in June, SUD Aérien called for a boycott of Elbit Systems cargo through the same Paris airport, while dockworkers in Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille, refused to handle similar freight. Workers’ pressure has escalated to the point that leaders of major union confederations felt compelled to publicly urge the French government to act and prevent similar shipments.
However, prospects for action from President Emmanuel Macron remain slim, so trade unions are instead urging workers to take matters into their own hands by refusing to handle military or dual-use cargo. “No hierarchy, no contract, no silence can justify participation in acts that everyone knows to be unjust or inhumane,” SUD Aérien said. “We call on all workers, unionized or not, to refuse to load this cargo, to assert their right to conscience, and to refuse to be complicit in this policy of death.”
Similar appeals can be found circulating in Piraeus, the port of Athens, where dockworkers have organized several actions to prevent arms shipments. Their union ENEDEP is now calling for broader mobilization, including students, workers, and community groups, ahead of the expected passage of the ship Ever Golden, bound for Israel. According to ENEDEP, Ever Golden, scheduled to dock in Athens on Monday, July 14, is carrying military-grade steel which will be used in attacks on Palestinians. “This cargo will be used to continue the slaughter of civilians, the bombing of hospitals, schools, children, infants, and women,” the union wrote.
ENEDEP has urged the public to gather at the port Monday morning to demonstrate widespread opposition to Greece’s facilitation of arms transfers. “Our goal is to block the unloading and prevent the transfer of this deadly cargo,” they stated. “We will not stain our hands with blood, we will not become accomplices.”
Efforts to halt arms shipments to Israel are also ongoing in Sweden, Italy, and Britain, among others. In the United Kingdom, workers from various sectors had taken direct action against Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems through the group Palestine Action, recently proscribed by the Labour government. In Sweden, dockworkers previously voted for a full-scale embargo on military equipment to and from Israel.
In Italy, dockworkers in Genoa and the wider membership of the union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) have organized actions to obstruct military cargo – most recently at the airport in Brescia. During that mobilization, USB emphasized that workers continue to repudiate war and highlighted an ongoing campaign to support the right to strike in cases involving the handling of military material, as well as the right to conscientious objection in research institutions, universities, and schools.
Through all these actions, workers are making clear that they reject being made complicit in genocide by employers or governments. “Our job is not to transport war,” SUD Aérien stated, echoing the sentiment of other unions. “Our solidarity is with the oppressed, not with war criminals.”
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
