Starmer 's push to crush protest rights on Israel's behalf

Starmer’s push to crush protest rights on Israel’s behalf reaches final stage

Keir Starmer’s government has moved closer than ever to crushing our protest rights in the UK, with his highly controversial Crime and Policing Bill moving to the final stages. And amid Israel’s ongoing war crimes throughout the Middle East, it seems crystal clear that Starmer’s efforts aim primarily to silence criticism of UK complicity.

Starmer’s Crime and Policing Bill seeking to ‘kill protest rights’ on Israel’s behalf

Starmer has already shown his authoritarian instincts openly. But Amendment 312 to the Crime and Policing Bill would let police effectively shut down protests via a vague concept of “cumulative disruption”. And despite opposition, MPs voted on 14 April to move the massive bill to its final stage.

Civil society groups have criticised the bill for ‘hollowing out‘ our right to protest and turning it into a ‘privilege’ that governments can simply take away when it doesn’t suit them. Faith leaders and a UN expert have joined them in calling it out too. And countless politicians have been vocal, with Labour peer Peter Hain saying:

this is a wholly unnecessary and damaging course of action that the government does not need to be taking

Labour MP Apsana Begum, meanwhile, clarified that:

The expansive police powers in the Crime and Policing Bill are a direct response to the demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine.

This connection is essentially common knowledge. And Your Party claimed Starmer’s moves show his cabinet is “desperate to repress the movement for Palestine“, with Jeremy Corbyn saying:

The government is fed up with people protesting about genocide.

Pro-Israel lobbyists have played a key role in securing Starmer and other right-wingers’ control of the Labour Party in recent years. And as Liberal Democrat peer Paul Strasburger has insisted:

in its attempts to crack down on pro-Palestinian protest, the government is eroding our democratic freedoms more broadly

Strasburger also mentioned the unlawful proscription of non-violent direct-action group Palestine Action, saying:

The authoritarian protest measures in the Crime and Policing Bill, and the misuse of terrorist proscription powers in the case of Palestine Action, are not isolated developments.

Freedoms won over centuries of popular struggle continue to be dismantled on behalf of the genocidal Zionist entity 3,000 miles away

Surreal to watch in real-time

Britain is well and truly occupied pic.twitter.com/68fLCXwAPX

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) April 15, 2026

This isn’t just about Palestine. It’s about democracy itself

Labour MP Andy McDonald led opposition in parliament to Amendment 312. Begum joined him, along with MPs like Mary Kelly Foy, Kim Johnson, and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell. Johnson slammed how the “vast expansion of anti-protest powers” had:

sneakily come through the back door

And McDonnell echoed this, highlighting the dangers of rushing the amendment through alongside “many amendments that were supportable”. The government, he lamented, was contributing to the ongoing:

erosion of basic civil liberties won by people protesting over centuries

As Labour MP Clive Lewis stressed, the government:

knew this wouldn’t survive proper scrutiny – so they denied MPs the time to give it any.

The Independent reported that:

The change was written in to the Bill by the Government during its House of Lords stages, meaning MPs had not been able to scrutinise it in the chamber until Tuesday.

Numerous politicians highlighted how the crackdown on protest rights today would have limited the Suffragettes or anti-apartheid campaigners of the past. And they warned of how a government even further to the right may use such powers in the future. As Strasburger stressed, the consequences of the government’s crackdown:

extend far beyond any single movement.

The measures, he asserted:

are part of a wider shift in how protest is being treated in Britain, from a protected democratic right to something increasingly conditional on the judgement of those in power at the time and local police.

And if we don’t stop Starmer’s cabal from “killing free speech” now, he warned, citizens in the future may remember us as:

the generation that let it slip away

As the House of Lords considers the amendments and parliament moves to approve a final draft of the bill, we must all do our best to avoid becoming that generation.

Featured image via the Canary

Comments 3

D71 says:

3 months ago

Strasburger can fuck off, couching the passing of this legislation as a failure of “the generation that let it slip away”. He totally misrepresents how government functions. Once you vote, your power is transferred, you no longer have it, government does. Responsibility for the legislation belongs to government alone, he is blaming the wrong people here, which shows a piss poor understanding. Similarly, protest is often described as a sign of a healthy and functioning democracy, however, the need to protest in fact shows the exact opposite, it shows a population disempowered and disregarded. The misrepresentation is deliberate. In a system functioning well, protest would not be needed, since mechanisms would already exist for people to be included in shared decision making, instead of the infantilising centralised hierarchical oppressive system we currently are subject to. I don’t know why you’re quoting such wankers, as though they’re fucking sages rather than stooges.

- Zor says:
  
  3 months ago
  
  all you have said above is so true yet mainly unknown by the majority of the population…what I feel is needed is a UK equivalent of the Iranian memes and info distribution in bite sized repeated facts until they are part of public consciousness and understood.
  Plus totally agree re the quoting of people who are “wankers” and frauds which is especially disappointing in a paper/news distributor such as the canary.
  Waken up folks…we are being herded into serfdom big time…and once the yoke is on our shoulders its too late to protest or break free….
  
DrC says:

3 months ago

“Once you vote your power is transferred.”
But the system is merely an approximation to democracy. Your representative represents your community, not you. There is no guarantee that the corporate will of parliament will represent the will of the people. It is merely the best we can do – or it would be if:

We chose who we vote for. We don’t except when we vote for independents.

They could vote on the issues that matters to their constituents. They can’t because the issues are chosen by the government.

All representatives had the same influence in the House of Commons. They don’t. Some are chosen to lead by power and influence outside The House, and they choose the issues.

So even before the elections are manipulated by well funded professional propagandists the system is suspect, and it can be used to implement measures that definitely are not the will of the people. That is why the right to demonstrate is important, and where democracy truly shows itself in the number of people prepared to turn out. And even then the propagandists will lie about the numbers. You could count more protesters in the photographs of the NHS marches than were reported as the total.

Democracy is valuable but fallible, and the right to demonstrate is important when it fails. Calling such demonstrations “Protests” and implying violent intent when there is none save in the minds of saboteurs and a minority of vulnerable malcontents is part of the propaganda.

And it is the nature of propaganda that it does not tell the whole story. It tells different parts to different audiences hoping to generate a false consensus.