Protests, proscription and the politics of dissent

By Meghana Pappu

If there is one thing I noticed in my brief stint of living it up in London, it's that getting on the Bakerloo line in the summer during rush hour—sans A/C, of course—makes one reconsider their life choices. Yet somehow, that very same cramped carriage still feels roomier than the space public discourse now allows for protests.

Picture this: in one corner of London, a group of activists superglue themselves to the entrance of an arms factory, their hands sticky with moral outrage. In another, a Cabinet minister signs a piece of paper declaring them "terrorists" between sips of lukewarm tea. Both acts are performative, but only one carries the weight of the state. This is the absurdist theatre of British politics in 2025, where vandalism is terrorism, where solidarity is criminal, and where the real violence—the kind that rains down from fighter jets onto Gaza—is neatly filed under "strategic exports."

Or is this whole spectacle—loud arrests, louder debates—a distraction from the silence at the heart of it all: the ongoing violence in Palestine itself?

And as London braces itself for a showdown, we are a uniquely placed witness to a collision of legal, moral, political—and yes, aesthetic—forces. Forces that have already seen: thirteen individuals charged with terrorism for publicly supporting the organisation, Amnesty International penning an open letter to the Met urging restraint, and a judge granting Palestine Action a judicial review of its proscription. Add to this a Home Secretary who seems perpetually one headline away from a nervous breakdown, and you get what feels less like law-making and more like live-action crisis management. But beyond the headlines, this moment forces us to ask difficult questions: Does banning a protest group actually make Britain safer? Does it erode freedom of speech? Or is this whole spectacle—loud arrests, louder debates—a distraction from the silence at the heart of it all: the ongoing violence in Palestine itself?

The ins and outs of proscription

Under Britain’s Terrorism Act, proscription equates certain groups with violent extremism, making it so that membership, support, or even praise can land someone years behind bars. In July, the Home Office banned Palestine Action, and almost immediately, a co-founder won permission to seek judicial review—a clear sign that the judiciary sees at least some arguable merit in concerns about proscribing an activist group. Proscription is not merely a rhetorical rebuke. It places activists, allies, and even the accidentally naive on the same legal map as violent extremists; its extremely flexible boundaries of definition and application are the very definition of overkill.

The decision to proscribe Palestine Action earlier this year came amid growing protests against UK arms manufacturers supplying Israel. Their methods (see: paint bombs, rooftop occupations, targeted disruption) were disruptive, yes, but to many supporters, they were also a last resort against what they see as Britain’s complicity in genocide. By branding such actions as “terrorist,” the government hasn’t just criminalised certain tactics; it has criminalised an entire political stance. That’s the point critics keep returning to: when does “counterterrorism” slip into “counterdissent”? (And while we’re at it: when did throwing red paint at an Elbit factory suddenly enter the same moral universe as funding mass violence and genocide?)

Free speech, public safety (and everything in between)

Supporters of proscription, of course, argue that disruptive protests cross a line. And for the sake of public discourse, let's approach this argument fairly. The first argument supporters point to, is the fact that disruptive protests can turn violent, even unintentionally, and proscription, advocates argue, is preventative. Then comes the classic tit-for-tat logic of—if Britain applies proscription to foreign groups with violent tactics, why should domestic groups get a free pass? And lastly, the legality of the fact that damage to property and targeted harassment are crimes. By escalating to proscription, the government signals zero tolerance.

Labeling activists as “terrorists” allows the state to avoid engaging with their arguments. It’s far easier to silence the crowd— to drown them out with your version of the narrative —than it is to listen.

But not only are all three of those points relying on hypothetical futures, they also assume that escalation is inevitable, that sympathy equals violence, that disruption equals terrorism—which is far-reaching, even for the conspiracists. Because here’s the catch: free speech isn’t just free when it’s comfortable, it’s meant to be most protected when it challenges power. And once you criminalise dissent, you create a chilling precedent. It's Palestine Action. Tomorrow? Extinction Rebellion? Trade unions? Your angry neighbour’s WhatsApp group?

Labeling activists as “terrorists” allows the state to avoid engaging with their arguments. It’s far easier to silence the crowd— to drown them out with your version of the narrative —than it is to listen (especially when you’re in the wrong). This move shifts the spotlight away from the underlying issue (which is, of course, Britain’s arms trade with Israel) and onto the spectacle of protest management.

That chilling effect is precisely what Amnesty International flagged this week in its appeal to the Met. Arresting protestors en-masse may win tomorrow’s headlines, but it sets a precedent: that supporting a controversial cause, however peaceful, can be met with terrorism charges. If that doesn’t unsettle you, it should. If not because it threatens the democratic foundations that modern society is meant to operate on; let it be because it raises a more unsettling question: is this all just a manufactured distraction?

Palestine’s ignored tragedy

While Britain argues over proscription orders and protest permits–while politicians squabble about whether a slogan equals terrorism; the death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza—the very crisis that prompted those slogans in the first place—worsens. Every headline about “terror-linked activists” pushes out another child’s desperate cry for food. For survival. Survival in a desolate, destitute genocide that they had no role in perpetuating, but are still the victims of anyway. Is it now that we have to ask ourselves: what responsibility does Britain bear in the violence itself?

By criminalising protestors, the government effectively makes the debate about the protestors rather than about those suffering in Palestine.

We have, before, seen governments reframe moral questions as law-and-order issues so they never have to answer the harder policy queries underneath. Proscription risks doing the same: it reroutes scrutiny from weapon exports, diplomatic choices, and humanitarian obligations onto the mechanics of protest policing. It's hard not to see echoes of the Iraq War era here—when mass protest was dismissed as naïve, when state violence was sanitised as “intervention,” and when those who raised objections were branded dangerous or disloyal.

By criminalising protestors, the government effectively makes the debate about the protestors rather than about those suffering in Palestine. This sleight of hand is politically useful: it reframes a moral crisis as a law-and-order problem, with the public left having arguments about whether paint is a crime rather than why the policies that anger people exist in the first place. More importantly, it also risks leaving Britain on the wrong side of history, yet again.

So, where do we go from here?

I wish I had an answer to this—even an easy one—but I don’t. I honestly doubt anyone does. But perhaps we need to ask a different question: what kind of democracy do we want to uphold? A democracy where dissent, even the loud, messy, inconvenient style, is tolerated, even valued? Or a democracy where solidarity with the oppressed can be reclassified overnight as an act of terror?

Proscription may make the government look tough in the short term, but long term it risks something far more dangerous: normalising the idea that freedom of speech is a conditional privilege, granted only when convenient, and to those who are convenient.

So yes, there will be protests this weekend, and yes, the police will likely flood the streets. But beneath the noise lies a quieter, more haunting reality: if we allow proscription to become the default response to dissent, then the real casualty here will not be a few broken windows or delayed train services, it will be democracy itself.

Image: Montecruz Foto