Almost 140 Arrested at London Palestine Action Protest as Burnham's Ban Faces Growing Pressure

By the time the Metropolitan Police posted its latest count on X, 139 people had been arrested outside the US embassy in Battersea, south London, and officers were still making more. The crowd had come to oppose the proscription of Palestine Action, and many held signs reading: "I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action." It was the largest mass demonstration against the ban since Andy Burnham became prime minister.

The police had made their position plain beforehand. The Met warned that anyone taking part faced arrest as part of what it called a robust policing operation, and that anyone playing a key role in organising, giving instructions to others or providing logistical support would probably be committing an offence. Commander Adam Slonecki, who led the operation, said everyone coming knew that supporting a proscribed organisation is unlawful, and that they were essentially meeting to purposefully commit a crime.

The group behind the protest, Defend Our Juries, gave a different account. It estimated that around 400 people attended, and said the Met was terrified of facilitating US embarrassment. It also put the wider toll in numbers: more than 4,000 arrests for supporting Palestine Action since the ban took effect, which it says represents the vast majority of terror arrests since last July. A separate vigil in support of the group was held outside the US consulate in Edinburgh.

The people in Battersea included Sue Morhall, a 79-year-old retiree who sat holding a sign that appeared to express support for Palestine Action. She said the United States is complicit in most of the wars now under way, and that leaders including Trump need to know how strongly people oppose what is happening in Gaza. She has been arrested five or six times at earlier demonstrations and said she felt "OK" about being put in a police van again. "It's the principle," she said. She thinks there is a chance Burnham will rescind the ban, though she put it with a shrug: it is early days, she said, and pigs might fly. She suspects he may wait until the American midterm elections.

The Rev Bill White, 72, held the same sign. He said he is appalled that Britain helps facilitate what he called genocide in Palestine, noting that British weapons are supplied and used against Palestinians. He had hoped for better from Burnham and resigned from the Labour party after Palestine Action was proscribed. As a faith leader, he said, he had no choice but to take part: it is a bad law, and wrong to criminalise people trying to prevent genocide. "How can I not be here?" he asked.

A Defend Our Juries spokesperson called the police response overzealous and said it showed how far UK authorities will go to appease American interests.

The protest follows a similar one last month outside the Labour party conference in Liverpool, where more than 160 people were arrested or reported for summons. At that conference, two activists confronted the foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, during a meal at a Pizza Express in the city centre. One urged him to declare a genocide in Gaza and de-proscribe the group. Miliband said he was happy to discuss it at another time, before the protesters were ushered out.

The new government is under pressure to lift the ban, but Shabana Mahmood, who has stood firm in favour of proscription, remains home secretary. The line of enforcement has also drawn scrutiny. The journalist and author Sarah Helm, wife of the prime minister's national security adviser Jonathan Powell, was accused of supporting the group after posting on X: "God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action." She was responding to news that the Irish author Sally Rooney can no longer sell her books in the UK because of her support for the group. The Met ultimately assessed that Helm's post did not meet the criminal threshold. Yet one woman in Battersea, holding a sign that copied the post with "retirees" in place of "authors", was among those arrested.

The next test comes on 4 November, when the UK supreme court hears an appeal against Palestine Action's designation as a terror group.