Mass London Rally Ends With 365 Arrests After Defiant Protesters Challenge New Ban
- Protest location: Central London districts, including Westminster, Whitehall and Trafalgar Square
- Organizer: Ad-hoc coalition led by former members of Palestine Action
- Police operation: Metropolitan deployment of 1,100 officers throughout Saturday afternoon and night
- Final count: 365 people taken into custody for “conspiracy to breach public order”
Legal Background—Why the March Was Deemed Unlawful
In July Parliament revised the Terrorism Act specifically to criminalise membership, financial aid or public endorsement of the now-disbanded group Palestine Action.
The amendment took immediate effect after:
- An overnight break-in on 28 June at RAF Waddington, where two fuel aircraft were sprayed with blood-red paint.
- The arrest of seven activists who allegedly caused £1.7 million in damage to military assets.
- Government assertions that further sabotage could endanger national security and overseas deployment.
How Saturday Unfolded
At 13:00 GMT protesters began converging beneath Nelson’s Column, many wearing plain black shirts to avoid identification.
By 14:30, police cordons forced the march southward toward Parliament Square; chants of “Lift the gag order now!” echoed along Whitehall.
Waterloo Bridge saw temporary disruption when a dozen cyclists chained themselves together, but traffic resumed after 35 minutes.
Arrests peaked between 17:45 and 19:10 as the crowd attempted to remain overnight outside the gates of Downing Street. Officers used pre-printed summons sheets to speed the process, allowing each detainee to be processed in roughly four minutes.
Defendants’ Immediate Concerns
Police stations in Holborn, Southwark and Belgravia stayed open until 03:00 Sunday to accommodate the high volume.
Legal observers reported:
- Allegations of injuries to three protesters.
- No bail granted until Monday morning hearings at Westminster Magistrates Court.
- Charges ranging from obstructing the highway to “wearing clothing likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.”
Supporters Denounce the Statute
The loosely coordinated movement behind Saturday’s gathering claims the prohibition violates Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
They argue that:
Next Steps
A coalition of civil-liberties lawyers intends to file for judicial review within 21 days.
Meanwhile, planning permissions for further protests have already been submitted for Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff next weekend.
Silver-Haired Symbol of Defiance: Why Police Led an 82-Year-Old Peace-Marcher Away Outside Westminster
The Scene at Noon
The bells of Big Ben were still echoing across the Thames at 12:03 p.m. when officers encircled a grey-haired woman clutching a hand-painted sign that read “Solidarity ≠ Terror.” Minutes later she was escorted into a waiting van. Around her, more than half-a-thousand people had converged on Parliament Square after a deliberately slow, three-kilometre walk from Holborn.
The March by Numbers
- 82 – age of the eldest person taken into custody
- 528 – number of placards seen by mid-afternoon
- 365 – police-confirmed arrests
- 7 – extra prison vans ordered when cells overflowed
Cat-and-Mouse Over Allegiance
Protesters insist that nearly everyone present openly backed the outlawed network Palestine Action, waving identical banners to make a point. Organizers argue that, because only a slice were actually detained, the government’s proscription of the group is “unenforceable and farcical.”
Scotland Yard counters that most bystanders were tourists or journalists. A senior officer told reporters:
“If we saw a placard, we acted.”
The Strategy Behind Seeking Handcuffs
According to legal observers, the demonstration was designed to overload police rosters and court lists, a tactic organizers call “constructive inefficiency.” One steward revealed plans to flood London’s Magistrates Courts this coming Monday with identical plea statements.
A Week of Climbing Stakes
Saturday’s mass hand-in of arrest-ready supporters follows barely seven days since Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, won leave to challenge the ban at the High Court. Activists see each fresh arrest as potential grist for that legal fight.
Next Moves
- Monday – Court hearing on bail conditions
- Tuesday – Emergency barristers’ briefing in Holborn
- Wednesday – Planned “courtroom solidarity” gathering
As the last vans rolled off toward Southwark at dusk, the elderly protester’s sign still lay on the pavement, a torn yet untouched reminder of the day Parliament Square briefly turned into a stage for civil disobedience.
Voices Echo Round Parliament Square as Activists Decry August Crackdown
9 August 2025, London
A forest of handmade placards swayed above the paving stones of Parliament Square on Saturday morning as hundreds gathered to challenge Westminster’s sudden proscription of Palestine Action. Under the watchful gaze of Big Ben, the crowd chanted, sang and spelled out, in block-capital marker pen, a single demand: Lift The Ban.
Who Was There?
- School leavers beside grandmothers waving the same checkered keffiyeh.
- Civil-rights veterans who marched against apartheid in the 1980s.
- Former policy advisers, now furious that their own government has moved, in their words, from “censure to criminalisation overnight”.
What Sparked the Uproar?
The Home Office quietly laid the regulation before Parliament on Tuesday evening—two days after MPs left for summer recess. By Friday morning, membership or public support for Palestine Action carried a potential sentence of up to 14 years. Saturday’s turnout was therefore equal parts anger and astonishment that something framed as a national-security necessity could arrive so swiftly and with so little debate.
Eyewitness Snapshots
The Street Orator
On the raised garden wall, a second-year university student balanced a loudhailer on her shoulder. “You can ban a logo,” she shouted, “but you cannot outlaw an idea.” Applause rippled through the crowd; a tourist filming on her phone murmured agreement in Italian.
The Quiet Veteran
Nabil, a retired civil engineer who once organised relief convoys to Gaza, stood near Churchill’s statue. His cardboard sign simply read: I Never Thought I’d Need Permission To Speak. “It’s not about one organisation,” he said, fingers tightening around the placard pole. “It’s the precedent that terrifies me.”
The Police Liaison
Half a dozen liaison officers in bright-blue bibs walked the perimeter, logging slogans on a clipboard. Their presence was unobtrusive—coffee exchanged, jokes cracked—yet every now and then the line of riot vans on Great George Street reminded onlookers of the boundary between legal protest and proscribed assembly.
Inside the Crowd
- Every lamppost wore a freshly printed #LiftTheBan sticker.
- A circle of primary-school pupils practised a clapping rhythm that soon infected the entire square.
- An impromptu stage—a moving wooden pallet—hosted poets, rappers and a septuagenarian saxophonist riffing over chants of “No Justice, No Peace”.
What Happens Next
Organisers pledged weekly vigils “until MPs return to debate what they rammed through in their absence”. Meanwhile, three human-rights chambers have already lodged a judicial-review application. Their filing quotes Magna Carta, the Human Rights Act and tweets from MPs who admit they never saw the regulation before it took effect.
In the fading summer light of August, the last placards were folded like fragile shields. Yet the slogans lingered in the air, stencilled onto windows and hearts alike: Silence Banned—Resistance Not.
Why is Palestine Action banned in the U.K.?
Red Paint, Red Lines: How a Midnight Raid on an Oxfordshire Airfield Prompted a Terror Ban
The Break-In That Changed Everything
Just after midnight on 20 June, a small cell slipped past perimeter fencing at RAF Brize Norton. Within minutes they were inside the hangar, pulling crowbars from rucksacks and shaking aerosol cans of scarlet paint.
- Two tanker aircraft designed for mid-air refuelling were targeted.
- Red pigment pooled inside engine cowlings, seeping across hydraulic lines.
- Locking pins were sheared, and flight-log folders strewn across the floor.
Base security arrived to find the words “Never Again” drying on the polished fuselage.
Tracing the Pattern: Months of Disruption
This was not an isolated stunt. For the past three years Palestine Action has staged more than forty direct actions, each aimed at severing what it calls “the UK arm of the Israeli war machine.” Campaigners have glued themselves to the gates of drone factories, scaled satellite-dish suppliers and doused corporate lobbies with blood-red paint.
Yet the incursion on Britain’s largest RAF transport hub crossed a fresh threshold, prompting ministers to issue an emergency Section 1 direction under terrorism law.
The Legal Thunderclap
What the Ban Means
- Membership or support of Palestine Action becomes a criminal offence.
- Bank accounts frozen, websites taken offline within 24 hours.
- Up to fourteen years’ imprisonment for those who continue organising.
Pushback in the Courts
A coalition of civil-rights lawyers argues the move “criminalises dissent” rather than neutralises violence. Their initial hearing is expected next month before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.
Political Fault Lines
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is preparing to formally recognise Palestinian statehood before December, finds himself squeezed from both directions:
- Government lawyers warn that failing to act would embolden further raids on critical infrastructure.
- Pro-Palestinian voices argue the ban shields arms manufacturers who profit from continuing bombardment in Gaza.
Caught between diplomatic gestures and domestic security, Whitehall’s latest order has ensured that July’s courtroom clash will be watched far beyond Britain’s borders.
