Zarah Sultana says David Lammy is lying about political prisoner hunger strikes

Your Party’s Zarah Sultana has accused justice secretary David Lammy of “lying when he says he doesn’t know about the hunger strikes” of non-violent activists whom the state has held captive without trial for months. The hunger strike began on 2 November.

Zarah Sultana calls for a stop to Britain’s descent into authoritarianism

Sultana highlighted that the current Labour government is overseeing the “largest coordinated hunger strike since the 1980s” because of its highly controversial crackdown on free speech. Parliament’s dodgy decision to proscribe direct-action group Palestine Action for its opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza has attracted international criticism. But as Sultana pointed out, “the complicity of a media landscape that does not hold power to account” has so far enabled the government’s repression. The corporate media’s “lack of coverage for the hunger strikers”, she stressed, has been “deeply shocking”.

Slamming Lammy’s duplicity, she said:

I have written to him. It has been raised in the Commons. There’s also an Early Day Motion. So he is lying.

He knows about the hunger strikers. He just doesn’t want to listen to them and address their demands.

Ultimately, Lammy is consciously participating in Britain’s descent into dictatorship. And as Sultana stated:

we need to have a conversation about the authoritarianism of this government that is handpicking judges for the Palestine Action judicial review and is conflating our right to protest with terrorism. It’s incredibly dangerous.

A massive national scandal that everyone should care about

Sultana insisted that we all need to highlight the fact that:

we have politicians serving in the highest offices in the land pretending that they don’t know what’s going on

She also asserted that:

it’s important that all of us raise awareness about the eight hunger strikers that are putting their lives on the line to raise awareness not just about the conditions that they are suffering in prison, but the fact that they have been denied bail. They want to have the right to a fair trial as we expect with our legal system.

And she stressed that:

David Lammy needs to meet the hunger strikers and listen to their demands.

No matter where people stand on the political spectrum, this state overreach in defence of Israeli war criminals is of great concern. Because when ordinary people allow the repression of one group, that gives governments the green light to repress all groups that threaten their power or the power of their friends. As German theologian Martin Niemöller famously said of Nazism in his homeland:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

The whole of Britain must stand up to the repression of Keir Starmer’s regime and the establishment politicians who have enabled it (from Labour to the Conservatives, and Reform to the Liberal Democrats). Because fascists are currently leading the race to replace Starmer, and history has shown us exactly what happens when they control the repressive machinery of the state.

Featured image via the Canary