On the second of July 2025, female members of Parliament posed for a photo wearing suffragette sashes to celebrate 97 years since the Equal Franchise Act was passed. The sashes were supposed to ‘commemorate the difficulties faced during the suffragette movement’ [1], difficulties which included being arrested and abused for fighting for human rights.

Image: Anne Marie Bickerton via BBC News

On the same day, these same MPs voted on to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group. The following article is a frank discussion about history and hypocrisy when it comes to the right to protest.

To begin with, let’s have a brief look at our history. Women’s suffrage consisted of two main groups with shared goals but drastically different methods of furthering them. Millicent Fawcett united various local suffrage societies in the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in 1897, and the group used tactics such as petitions, organised marches, distributing pamphlets, public speeches and writing letters to politicians. The NUWSS was an important and influential group, however their progress was painfully slow and the lack of action from parliament prompted Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters to form a breakaway group, the Women’s Social and Political Union. ‘Deeds not words’ became their slogan, and their activism took a different form to that of their predecessors. Some of the highlights of suffragette activism included breaking shop windows, chaining themselves to railings, burning down churches, attacking MPs and going on hunger strikes in prison.

It’s important to note that only members of the WSPU were known as suffragettes, the NUWSS members called themselves suffragists, and the two groups were very distinct. Both organisations played a role in the success of universal suffrage, however the actions of the suffragettes were vital to keeping the issue in the public eye and putting pressure on the government. Rachel Holmes writes that ‘the successes and failures of the movement are the total sum of its differing parts. These feminists combined working within and without the system – legal suits with marching boots; law-breaking and peaceful petitioning; fights on the streets and between the sheets […] The radical convergence of constitutionalism, democratic aspirations, direct action and socialist solidarity created a tipping point in the struggle that drove feminist emancipation’ [2].

Before we go on, I would like to say that celebrating the suffragettes is an amazing thing to do, and it’s brilliant that we can see a very real and poignant improvement in equality through the existence of a couple hundred female MPs. However this photo of our current law makers and peoples representatives celebrating the brave work of the suffrage movement would suggest that they support peaceful protests for human rights, and that is pure hypocrisy.

Image: James Manning/PA Wire via the Independent

Palestine Action describe themselves as “committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime” [3] although I had to get this from a news article because if you search for the Palestine Action website you can’t access it. They organise protests and marches, distributes leaflets and posters and lobbies parliament. Pretty standard things to do when you vehemently disagree with the government no?

I would sincerely hope that anyone reading this understands the need for protests in the UK, but in case you’ve been willingly sticking your head under a gargantuan pile of rocks, the ongoing genocide is funded by the UK government and covered up by supposedly ‘impartial’ news organisations.

The UK supplies the laser targeting system for the F-35 jets which have been used ‘extensively’ to strike Gaza [4] and refuses to place sanctions on Israel. The UK does not recognise Palestine as a state – an inalienable right – and is instead dangling that human right as a half-hearted bargaining chip based on vague steps to be taken by Israel whilst the UK continues to aid in the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians.

David Lammy (foreign secretary until the cabinet reshuffle this past week) puts out a shallow statement every now and then saying how ‘appalled and sickened’ is by the civilian suffering in Gaza [5], however won’t stop sending arms and continues to insist that Israel must be able to defend itself [6].

At what point in the systematic genocide of an entire population will politicians stop calling it self defence? We are truly living in a dystopian nightmare.

And before anyone cries what about October 7th, Kevin Bridges put it very well: ‘Obviously October 7th was horrific, and what made it horrific was the killing of innocent people – something that’s happened every day since.’ [7]

History did not start on October 7th.

Israel has been systematically wiping out Palestinians long before October 7th.

And when we all learnt about the holocaust in school, and we all said never again? Never again means never again for anyone, Jewish OR Palestinian. This is genocide.

Branding an anti-genocide activist group as terrorism is unprecedented in the UK. In a free society, we should all have the right to peacefully protest against the actions of our elected officials.

So what’s the worst thing Palestine Action has done? Did they burn down churches or attack MPs? No, the worst thing activists have done is spray paint a couple of RAF planes. And given that the UK is supplying a genocidal regime with military equipment I think we can all see why. But lets be clear, this is far less extreme than suffragette activism.

Furthermore, suffragettes were seeking for the right to vote, whereas pro-Palestine groups are fighting for the right to stay alive, the right to access food and medical care, the right to a home, the right to freedom. We are desperate.

Disgustingly, the proscription of Palestine Action had been in the works for months prior to this, a radical new paint job was only the trigger for the UK government to infringe on our right to protest [8]. PM Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper were working to silence our dissent to their complicity in Israel’s crimes even before the planes were painted.

In March, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre which works within MI5 advised the government that ‘Palestine Action will highly unlikely explicitly advocate for violence against persons, and that the organisation is funded by donations (despite unfounded tabloid reports that it was funded by Iran). The Foreign Office advised that Palestine Action is ‘primarily seen by many countries as an activist group rather than an extremist one’ [9]. Last November, a letter sent from UN experts to Keir Starmer ‘argued that the use of counter-terror legislation against Palestine Action was “unjustified”.’ Interestingly, the report from the Foreign Office did note that ‘the US government would respond positively to the proscription’ [10] so I guess we should follow the money back to Trump’s big orange gob?

The state of UK politics is dire, but we’ve always been able to soothe our sorrows and egos with the small comfort that we’re not quite as bad as America. Unfortunately, everything leads back to capitalism and every government follows the money straight to Trump’s badly spray tanned gob.

The proposed amendment to the Terrorism Act brands Palestine Action as being on the same level as ISIS and al-Qaeda. It gives the police the right to arrest people for peacefully protesting the involvement of our government in genocide. It demands that the public sits quietly and watches as the rich and powerful remain complicit in the murder and starvation of millions of Palestinians.

The order even included two other groups, the Russian Imperial Movement and Maniacs Murder Cult which ‘lumped Palestine Action together with neo-Nazi groups making it difficult for MPs to vote against’ [11].

All but 8 of these women either voted to legally proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group or didn’t bother to vote on it at all. And then stood for a photo op wearing the garments of protesters.

Immediately following the vote, four people were arrested, including a woman who tried to lock herself to the entrance of the parliamentary estate [12] with the irony being apparently lost on the government. Other dangerous criminals include doctors, elderly pensioners and priests. At a demonstration in London on Saturday, almost 900 protesters were arrested [13].

Image: Muriel Matters chained to the grille in the Ladies’ Gallery, via the *Illustrated London News,* 1908

When talking to friends and family and engaging in discourse online, there are two worrying beliefs about protests which come up time and time again.

The first is an alarming tendency shown by politicians and members of the public alike to whitewash the past, which results in sentimental but fundamentally disingenuous rose coloured view of past movements alongside the demonisation of current protesters.

The second is a politically apathetic belief that protesting is pointless and won’t change anything. The mindset is: it’s not worth me protesting and it doesn’t really matter if those people who are protesting are silenced because they’re fighting a lost cause and disrupting my life/commute/ability to look away.

Both of these beliefs would benefit greatly from examining our recent history. If we look at universal suffrage, civil rights, workers rights, LGBTQ+ rights, none of the social reforms and human rights laws that we take for granted (or are still fighting for in some cases *screams in trans rights*) just magically came into being.

Rich men in power do not simply wake up one morning and decide to have a moral compass.

There’s a quote from David Lloyd-George (Welsh politician b.1863) which captures an infuriatingly common reaction to radical activism still prevalent over a hundred years later. In 1913, at the height of Suffragette activism, he said: ‘haven’t the Suffragettes the sense to see that the very worst way of campaigning for the vote is to try and intimidate a man into giving them what he would gladly give otherwise?’ [14]

What do you mean GLADLY GIVE OTHERWISE? Women had been campaigning for the vote since the mid 1800s, if men were going to gladly give it they’d have gladly given it years ago.

None of the shifts in human rights laws that we take for granted came about through letter writing, leaflet sharing and petition signing alone. Whilst they are important parts of pushing for change, everything is stacked against us for change to happen without radicalisation. It’s difficult to have a conversation about protesting without launching into various tangents about the class system, the way governments are set up and of course, capitalism. Everything is connected, from the billionaires telling you to blame immigrants for the cost of living to the minerals in your iphone being mined in by a child in Congo. The religious imperialism which lead to Israel’s colonisation of Palestine can be recognised in ICE raids in America and the rise in conservatism politics leads people down a dangerous pipeline towards regressive politics which will ultimately hurt us all. It’s all connected.

The capitalist nature of society means that policies and campaigns are funded by the rich to protect their own interests. That’s why JK Rowling’s spiral into TERF final boss has been so horrifying to watch, because she has put her massive fortune behind her equally massive bigotry to the detriment of trans people’s safety and human rights. We, the people can speak out against her politics but we cannot undo the damage caused. We have to protest, because our screams become mere whispers against the wealth of billionaires.

Stonewall was a rebellion. Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat was illegal. Workers strikes are disruptive to say the least. Protests were intense, because when people are denied basic human rights, they tend to get desperate. You can’t celebrate the suffragettes and condemn Palestine Action in the same breath. You can’t have Martin Luther King in the school curriculum and then send the military in to subdue protests against ICE. We have landmark moments in history that empowered others to join in until the will of the people was too strong to ignore. It is because of millions of brave, moral protesters who went before us that the world is a better place, and looking at history through rose coloured glasses is disrespectful to veterans of these events and unfair to those protesting in the present day.

We all learnt about World War Two and the holocaust in school, and when I was reading Anne Frank’s Diary or novels set in occupied France or Poland, I always wondered what I would’ve done if I lived in that time. Of course, dissent wasn’t allowed in occupied territories and it was extremely dangerous to say anything against the Nazi party or its activities. But the thing is, despite the attacks on the right to protest that we’ve seen over the last few years, those of us in Europe and America still have a hell of a lot more freedom than Europeans in World War Two. And what’s happening in Palestine is the most well documented genocide in history. There are photos and videos everywhere. I checked my phone before bed a couple of nights ago and saw more blood than there was in the ‘crazy 88’ scene in Kill Bill. When you’re chatting to your friends ten years in the future and they say ‘I never realised it was that bad, of course I would have spoken out if I’d known’: they’re lying. You have to be wilfully ignorant not to see the suffering.

The truth is, if you’ve ever wondered what you’d have done during the holocaust, during the civil rights movement, during the AIDS crisis, during any of these events... you’re doing it now.

Protesting is complicated for a lot of us. For me personally, my experience protesting has been very limited because I have multiple chronic illness and am currently recovering from surgery. The last few protests I had planned to attend, I had to cancel last minute because I was in too much pain, which sucks and has left me feeling even more frustrated and helpless than I already was. The proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group complicates matters further, as not everyone can afford to risk criminal charges. So please, contact your MP, donate to organisations like Medical Aid Palestine if you can, lift up the voices of Palestinians and journalists on social media and don’t stop talking about Palestine.

Thank you for reading,

Hannah

References

1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6112gjeywo

2. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/06/feminism-women-vote-suffragette-democracy-protests-political-theatre

3. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/4/palestine-action-what-has-the-group-done-as-11.it-faces-a-ban

4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz09k48z9v0o

5. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjg993670jo

6. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz09k48z9v0o

7. https://www.instagram.com/p/DMZdJIYxb3V/?hl=en&img_index=1

8. https://www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-how-palestine-action-was-banned/

9. https://www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-how-palestine-action-was-banned/