On Monday, the Metropolitan Police issued a warning that it is prepared to make mass arrests at next Saturday’s demonstration in London, which is demanding action to end the starvation and genocidal war being waged in Gaza, and for the immediate recognition of the independent State of Palestine.
The police and the Labour government are publicly aiming their threats at any demonstrator expressing support for Palestine Action which was designated a ‘terrorist’ organisation in July by a vote in Parliament proposed by Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Anyone giving verbal support or holding placards which police officers identify as supporting the group will be arrested and charged.
In fact, only one demonstration has been called on Saturday by pro-Palestinian groups, and hundreds of thousands will be attending despite the police attempting to portray it as a demonstration of around a hundred supporters of the pressure group Defend Our Juries, which has been accused of planning mass civil disobedience in defiance of the law.
In other words, what is being promised by the Metropolitan Police, and backed to the hilt by the Labour government, is the mobilisation of the police and courts to smash up the massive wave of rebellion by workers and youth against Zionist genocide and its enablers in the Labour government.
The Labour government adopts meaningless proposals to recognise the State of Palestine at some future date, while over 60,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, have already been murdered by Israeli forces, and while children are dying of starvation every day in Gaza. Every day the UK continues to supply components to the very weapons used to commit these war crimes.
Now Starmer’s government is turning the police loose in an attempt to put a lid on the massive tide of opposition from the working class. This was made clear yesterday when Starmer’s official spokesperson urged people not to attend Saturday’s demonstration.
The pressure that has built up under Starmer’s government, from the demands by workers and youth for real action to end all support for genocide, has also reached the point of explosion throughout the world, including in Israel itself.
This week it emerged that 550 former Israeli spies, soldiers and police have written an open letter to US president Donald Trump demanding that the war in Gaza ends because Hamas no longer represents a strategic threat to Israel, and that the war had ceased to be a ‘just war’ and was ‘leading the state of Israel to lose its security and identity.’ The letter urged Trump to pressurise Israeli prime minister Netanyahu to agree a ceasefire.
What has shaken the Israeli military is the failure of the Netanyahu government to defeat Hamas and secure the release of the captives – the aims which the regime originally used to justify the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
With Netanyahu now openly proclaiming the intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza and occupy it indefinitely with Zionist settlers protected by Israeli troops, the military are rebelling at the prospect of being forced to carry out this impossible task by an army of ‘war weary’ reservists.
With the pressures building up to boiling point, the Labour government is clearly scared that it can no longer hope that all the mass demonstrations are just another protest movement that will inevitably decline. They are now faced with a real challenge by a massive movement of the working class, that they are seeking to suppress by threats that it will be crushed by mass arrests.
This mass workers and youth movement that has erupted over Gaza with the increasing demand for action to end the genocide in Gaza is a direct threat to a Labour government that has been exposed before the working class as nothing other than a loyal tool of the international bourgeoisie.
Starmer’s attack is a declaration of class war against workers and youth who are rising up against his complicity in genocide, which must be dealt with by the entire trade union movement and the masses of working class youth.
Any attempt to break up the demonstration by the police on Saturday must immediately be met by the TUC calling an indefinite general strike to kick out this treacherous Labour government, that only serves the interests of the bosses and bankers, replacing it with a workers government and socialism. This is the only way forward.
