Palestine is an election issue and more says incoming PSC Director

JVL Introduction

This year’s Labour Party conference saw dignified protests over the weekend, a march and rally on the Saturday and another Defend Our Juries protest against the proscription of Palestine Action.  In this interview with Aimee Shalan, soon to become the Director of UK’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign, she outlines the importance of Palestine as a broader electoral issue. We can note that in his conference speech, the Foreign Secretary Ed Milliband, said that those motivated to demonstrate and take action in protest at what Israel has been doing, especially in Gaza “were right”.

Shalan notes that “…public anger over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and Britain’s response was increasingly being expressed not just through demonstrations but at elections, in workplaces and trade unions and through consumer campaigns.”

As she also says: “people cannot unsee what they have seen”.  She addresses the attempts to criminalise the movement and, eg to label the marches in support of the Palestinian people as “hate marches”. There is much more to read here and we greatly look forward to Aimee Shalan taking up her position in November.

This article was originally published by The Guardian on Mon 28 Sep 2026. Read the original here.