Sane voices must prevail
Published
by
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi
JVL Introduction
While pro-Israel lobby groups were celebrating their success in setting British democracy back a century with MPs’ approval Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s draconian plan to brand Palestine Action a terrorist group alongside Russian neo-Nazis and ISIS, sanity appeared in a number of eloquent letters to the Guardian, reproduced below.
Claire Jauffret summed up in one simple phrase the hypocrisy of those who, the morning before the fateful vote, had the gall to pose for photographs in suffragette garb: “I wonder whether Yvette Cooper would be where she is today without the often extreme actions of the suffragettes.”
One writer, who preferred not to have their name published, expressed the feelings of the thousands who have written letters, lobbied and demonstrated to try and prevent the government’s authoritarian move:
People of conscience are not terrorists or criminals. That label belongs to a government that is arming regimes, committing crimes against humanity, and crushing anyone at home who opposes these illegal acts. I think the wrong people are in prison.
NWI
This article was originally published by Guardian Letters on Thu 3 Jul 2025. Read the original here.
Ban on Palestine Action will rebound on Labour
Loading article text…
I guess these guys mean business now. They are above criticism. They defend the indefensible and they are handing out the sentences. Yvette Cooper claims authenticity on the grounds she is a feminist. Can anyone imagine her as a suffragette?
On Yvette Cooper. She is in line with the dominant suffragette movement which supported the Imperialist war in 1914. The anti-imperialist war movement was led by the likes of Sylvia Pankhurst who edited the ‘The Woman’s Dreadnought’. Too many opponents of our reactionary governments still support dead ducks like the two-state solution or fail to oppose British colonial occupation in the north of Ireland.
I hope that JVL, the PSC and the JSG and other organisations will put out statements very soon on what is going on in relation to PA and today’s arrests.
We are working hard on one. We value getting our statements politically right and written clearly over getting them out speedily – not that we are being dilatory.