Yes, Labour Got It Wrong on Gaza. Now It Must Stop Attacking Those Who Got It Right
As two of the main organisers of the Palestine solidarity marches, we have witnessed a disturbing escalation of attacks on the right to peaceful protest. If Labour is truly sorry, it must reverse them
In a video on social media, Andy Burnham has admitted that the party “didn’t get it right” on Gaza. His apology has been rightly criticised for failing to offer concrete action to end complicity with the genocide in Gaza and the violent occupation in the West Bank. But one question is missing from the commentary: If Labour “got it wrong” over Palestine, is it not time for a reset in the treatment of those who got it right?
While the government has been unwilling to condemn the genocide, the British public have not. There have been 35 national marches, which we have helped organise, many of them numbering hundreds of thousands. November 2023’s Remembrance Day demo saw close to one million turn out. In May this year, despite a virtual news blackout of Gaza and the threat of a big far right demo, a quarter of a million marched. This is almost certainly the greatest cycle of protests on any subject in British history.
Perhaps this is why, since October 2023, the Palestine solidarity movement has experienced a level of repression not seen in this country since the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85. It amounts to an alarming escalation of already mounting attacks on civil liberties.