In the past few days, there have been two examples of protest groups taking unaccountable and destructive direct action. On Wednesday morning Shut The System smashed windows and sprayed the façade at Palantir’s office in central London.
Early this morning trans rights activists BASH BACK carried out a similar action at a Brighton Conference Centre hosting a feminist event (FiLiA) which they claim is closely linked to transphobic voices.
More on those both those actions below, but first some context.
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In last week’s latest assault on the right to protest (a fundamental human right which is surely a strong indicator of a healthy, democratic and functioning society), the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced her intention to amend Sections 12 and 14 of the existing Public Order Act 1986, to allow the police to consider the ‘cumulative impact’ of repeated protests, as part of justification to limit, move, or even ban a protest (with organisers liable for huge fines and participants liable to arrest for non-compliance).
The announcement followed state and corporate media hysteria over the horrific suspected terrorist and hate-motivated attack at the Heaton Park Synagogue, in which it appears police were responsible for one of the two Jewish fatalities. On that same day, dozens of Palestinians (whose names we were not told) were murdered by Israeli bombs and bullets by a regime still receiving arms supplies from British-based companies, despite arrest warrants on members of their government and widespread reputable accusations of genocide.
In the days following the Manchester attack, the press characterised anti-Israel protests against an ongoing genocide as offensive and intimidating towards Jews in general. This conflation of anti-genocide with antisemitism is a dangerous tool – I have met and got to know far more Jewish people on pro-Palestine marches than I had ever met before in my life – all of them amazing, caring human beings.
Suella Braverman, who openly plans to exclude the UK from the European Human Rights Act, went online to describe a peaceful sit-down protest by mainly elderly people in Trafalgar Square last week as a ‘hate march’.
When she was the Conservative Home Secretary, she tried and partly failed to further outlaw protest using Public Order legislation. In the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (PCSCA), she introduced a provision to be able to later adjust the definition of ‘serious disruption’ – the threshold at which police can impose conditions and bans on protests. In 2023, Braverman introduced through primary legislation a new Public Order Bill with an updated and draconian definition of ‘more than minor disruption’, but failed to get it through a parliamentary vote. Then, effectively ignoring the democratic process, the Government used the PCSCA provision as a backdoor, signing a Statutory Instrument to amend the original Public Order Act with the new definition.
In 2024, Liberty won a legal challenge in the High Court that the change was outside the power conferred in 2022 and hadn’t been properly consulted. The Government appealed that decision but lost in May this year, and the new legislation was quashed, reinstating the “serious disruption” definition.
Now Shabana Mahmood intends to restrict protest using the same backdoor technique as her predecessor, giving the police new powers through another attempt to alter the definition of serious disruption. Effectively, this government wants people to hold quiet ineffective protests and then prevent them from repeating their protest again when they are ignored, on the basis that it would have a ‘cumulative’ disruptive effect.
Although Braverman failed on one count, she did manage to introduce draconian prison sentences for broadly-defined ‘public nuisance’ offences, and then Yvette Cooper brought in the highly controversial proscription of direct action group Palestine Action, so it is no wonder that more and more activists are turning towards unaccountable and destructive actions.
With so much visible and seemingly increasing injustice in the world, there is little hope of simply legislating away legitimate protest, and the attempt to do so will inevitably result in a war of attrition between the state and its citizens – the beginnings of which we are seeing now.
One predictable effect of the Home Secretary’s most recent announcement is the unifying of opposition. Within hours of her media appearances, right-wing social media accounts were screaming that she was trying to clamp down on their “migrant hotel” protests, as part of some perceived “Islamist” plan. At the same time, Defend Our Juries, one of the groups Mahmood is targeting, responded with the announcement of a further escalation to their very dignified and peaceful protests which call for the de-proscription of Palestine Action.
It is doubtful the government can ever win with their Whack-A-Mole-style legislation strategy, but it is certainly driving activists to engage in the sort of actions we have seen this week.
SHUT THE SYSTEM AND PALANTIR
In London on Wednesday, the target was the Soho Square offices of Palantir Technology. The smashing of windows and spraying of ‘blood-red’ paint was carried out, according to their press release, by the ‘Palestine solidarity faction of Shut The System’, who say they also destroyed CCTV cameras and ID card readers, in order to disrupt business as usual.
Palantir’s alleged complicity in genocide on Palestine stems from investigations by American Friends Service Committee, Investigate, the Business & Human Rights Centre and Press TV. The company has entered into formal defence agreements and given vocal public support to Israel since early 2024, with particular specialisation in AI-enabled targeting tools. In fact the company is one of very few that has actually accelerated its co-operation with the Israeli military and security throughout the two-year occupation and expansion.
In addition, Palantir has stoked controversy over its tracking and predictive policing technology, used by immigration enforcement in the US, and attacked for its disproportionate targeting of minority communities. Activists in the UK worried about privatisation of the NHS have also raised the alarm over Palantir’s acquisition of all our health records in 2023 as part of a ‘Federated Data Platform’.
FiLiA and BASH BACK
BASH BACK are a direct action trans-rights group fighting back against growing verbal and physical abuse of transgender people. In a climate of openly rising discrimination and in the wake of the Supreme Court gender-recognition ruling in April, trans activists are targeting organisations they see as complicit in that discrimination. Earlier this year they targeted the offices of private prison operators Sodexo following the death of a trans man at Bronzefield prison.
In the early hours this morning, activists smashed windows, sprayed pink paint and graffitied the Brighton Conference Centre where the three-day FiLiA conference opened this morning.
FiLiA portrays itself as a radical feminist network standing up for a victimised minority, but BASH BACK point to backing from billionaire J K Rowling, along with powerful Christian fundamentalist groups. Among the speakers this year are Julie Bindel, LGBAlliance and Transgender Trend, as well as Jenny Wilmott, director of Scottish Lesbians – one of the groups responsible for this year’s segregationist and transphobic Supreme Court ruling.
Brighton is widely seen as a progressive and tolerant city, and the decision to hold such an event there could be regarded as intimidating and aggressive. The Brighton Trans Pride organisers distanced themselves from the action but refused to condemn it.
An anonymous spokesperson for BASH BACK called out the organisers of the conference, saying: “If you expect to continue in your trade of transphobic hate, if you expect to continue in your queerbashing and transmisogyny and call it ‘feminism’, then expect resistance, expect retaliation, expect us. Paint washes off, but blood never does.”
