The Canary has mapped the policing response to Palestine Action demonstrations across the country – and the data has illustrated enormous disparities in the levels of repression forces have meted out against peaceful protesters. It has also exposed several instances where police have seemingly interpreted their powers in starkly different ways.
The map unveils a detailed picture of the last four months of oppressive policing. It reveals the effects of the Labour Party government’s authoritarian clampdown in action, depicting a detailed timeline of police complicity in the deliberate erosion of protest rights.
Palestine Action protest arrests mapped
Protests have mainly congregated in cities or central locations across various regions. It has meant that the vast majority of UK police forces have actually yet to enforce the ban. To date, 12 forces have deployed the Terrorism Act against peaceful protesters at demonstrations or individuals in home arrest operations. It means 33 have so far not applied the proscription – at least within their policing jurisdiction.
Nevertheless, nationwide, cops have arrested around 2,150 people for expressing support for Palestine Action:
Just weeks into the non-violent direct action group’s proscription, a picture was already emerging of the palpable incongruity in policing. In some places, police enforced the new draconian ban, while in others they let protesters proceed unhindered. The Canary wrote just over a week after the ban about the “stark divide” in policing responses. We noted that:
Raids and repression to different degrees across the country are indicative of the chaos the government has unleashed with its order that permits police to treat protestors holding cardboard signs as if they were terrorists.
The Canary has now mapped the vastly different policing responses across forces. You can explore this below:
A postcode lottery of policing
To sum up, policing of Lift the Ban protests has been a bit of a postcode lottery. In some places, protesters have held peaceful demonstrations without interference or arrest.
Cumbria Police was among the forces that made no arrest when a protester held one of the now-infamous signs in Kendal Town centre in August. This obviously compares starkly to the Met’s approach. Met commissioner Mark Rowley has repeatedly publicly vowed to arrest all protesters breaching the proscription order. However, protesters have left him embarrassed time and again, as the sheer scale of participation has utterly overwhelmed the force. Nevertheless, it has made a show of arresting hundreds of protesters.
Yet, even policing by the same forces has been inconsistent. From one month to the next, police in some areas have made completely different decisions.
Devon and Cornwall Police made eight arrests at a protest near Truro Cathedral. However, a week later, the force appeared to decide not to arrest eight sign-holders at a 60-minute demonstration in Totnes. Journalist George Monbiot was among the protesters who avoided arrest. Then, in October, Devon and Cornwall Police similarly chose not to arrest six protesters. Ironically, this was at the exact location where it had arrested eight protesters only months prior.
Dawn raids at the homes of peaceful protesters: the new anti-terrorism in action
Levels of police repression have also evidently varied dramatically across the country.
As hinted above, police haven’t always arrested individuals during protests. In some cases, they’ve abused the new proscription-enabled powers in draconian policing raids.
In August, Leicestershire Police carried out a dawn raid in Hinckley over 52-year-old Mat Cobb’s social media posts. Cops barged into his home at 7am on Wednesday, 20 August. Cobb told the Independent how he heard his housemate:
Answer the door, then some shouting, then running up the stairs, and my housemate shouting ‘I’m sorry, Mat’, then they came into my room and told me I was under arrest and to put my hands where they can see them. Then they put me in handcuffs.
As the outlet reported, Leicestershire Police put him in a holding cell before searching, photographing, swabbing him for DNA, and taking his fingerprints. While detained at the station, they showed him a series of his own Facebook posts that they claimed violated the new law.
Similarly, in what appeared to be another appalling case of overreach, in July, South Wales Police conducted a raid on the home of 80-year-old Marianne Sorrell. Cops even searched her home with what looked to be a Geiger counter.
And while there were no media reports, Police Scotland appeared to follow suit in September. A short news bulletin on its website reported that officers executed a warrant for the arrest of a 59-year-old man. It claimed that the raid was part of an investigation into:
Those involved in encouraging support for Palestine Action.
Inconsistent policing
Furthermore, how police have interpreted the law has also changed from force to force in several glaring instances.
In July, Police Scotland charged a 38-year-old man under the Terrorism Act for displaying a poster in his window. Yet other forces have been explicit that expressing support within the bounds of private property does not constitute a criminal offence.
Police Scotland’s approach was in direct contrast to what Merseyside Police told Liverpool resident Keith Hackett in August. In a now viral exchange, officers told Hackett that:
As I’m sure you’re aware, there is no offence with it because it’s in a private dwelling; you’re allowed to say that. It would only be an offence if it were in a public place.
Then, in September, an unverified social media report indicated that Dyfed-Powys Police had adopted Merseyside’s approach. It also purportedly said that a poster in the window of a private residence is not illegal.
And since then, even the Met has made clear it’s not an offence.
So obviously, this begs the question of why, across the border, Police Scotland went so far as to charge an individual for doing what other forces have said is perfectly legal? The point here is that since parliament passed the authoritarian ban, police have evidently been in shambles over how and when to apply it.
Collaboration with the Met’s mass arrests
While some police forces have yet to enforce the ban in their areas, a number have assisted the Met in its mass arrests.
The Canary has verified the presence of no fewer than seven police forces that have collaborated with the Met at Lift the Ban protests in central London. They included the City of London, Suffolk, Thames Valley, Dyfed Powys, Gwent, South Wales, and the PSNI. Of course, it’s highly plausible the Met has drafted in officers from other forces in addition to these.
What’s notable here is the sheer lengths the government will go to save face over its draconian proscription order and crackdown. It has quite literally flown cops in from the North of Ireland simply to arrest peaceful protesters – largely pensioners – sitting with placards. PSNI drew warranted hate for this.
Amounting to state repression
Before the Labour government brought the proscription into effect, the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) had already lambasted the aggressive use of anti-protest and anti-terror laws by the police. In March, it said that successive governments have made restrictions and oppressive policing so severe in the UK that it essentially amounted to state repression.
And significantly, in one part of its State of Protest report, it noted how:
Matt Jukes, the national head of Counter Terrorism Policing, reported that between October 2023 and October 2024, there had been over 80 arrests for terrorism offences directly related to the war in Gaza, stating that “roughly half of these relate to protest activity”.
Now, with more than 2,100 arrests in four months, it puts the scale of state repression on a whole different level.
A Greenpeace analysis of the Terrorism Act’s 24 years of existence has only further emphasised this. Towards the end of October, it was identified that:
Of all the arrests made under the Terrorism Act since it came into force 24 years ago, almost half of them (2,100 out of 4,322) occurred in the last four months, and targeted people holding signs at silent vigils against the proscription of Palestine Action. The Greenpeace analysis also showed that the Crown Prosecution Service has charged more people (144) with terror-related offences in just two months of 2025 than in any entire year since 2001, including the years of the 7/7 bombings and the Westminster, London Bridge and Manchester Arena attacks.
Defend Our Juries has also reported a higher figure for charges to date – 170. This far eclipses any single year. Before 2025, the highest number under the Terrorism Act was in 2024, at 50 people charged. In its 24 years to March 2025, cops have charged 704 people under the Act.
24 years of the Terrorism Act: by far the most charges for peaceful placard-holders
However, the divide gets even more stark when you look solely at figures for the three main sections of the Act that the police have been arresting people for since Palestine Action’s proscription. These have mainly been: section 12 (inviting support for a proscribed organisation) and section 13 (displaying or publishing articles or images in support of a proscribed organisation). Police have also arrested a smaller number for section 11 (membership of a proscribed organisation). Tallying the three of them together shows that police have charged just 134 people from September 2001 to March 2025.
So, in just the last four months, charges under these sections of the Terrorism Act have far exceeded all the charges under the same sections over the past 24 years. And of course, the numbers will still climb yet – since police have arrested well over 2,100 people to date:
It begs the question, who’s really doing the terrorism? Because what’s evident from all this is that it’s the cops terrorising communities speaking out for Palestine.
Ultimately, this whole sordid affair underscores that cops can use their discretion to choose not to enforce the ban and direct their resources elsewhere. Yet despite this, many have still gone ahead and done so anyway. The Met and collaborating forces have clearly led the charge on this.
At the end of the day, the unjust policing of Palestine Action protests has everything to do with silencing dissent and maintaining the military industrial complex in all its forms. Labour’s untenable participation in genocide and its maintenance and extension of authoritarian anti-protest laws go hand in hand. Its cynical use of the Terrorism Act to erode citizens’ protest rights is in full swing. However, thousands of people have already resisted. And this month, hundreds, maybe thousands more, are planning to join them.
Feature image via the Canary
By Hannah Sharland
This post was originally published on Canary.
