With deliberate mass starvation taking hold in Gaza as the latest face of Israel's US- and UK- backed genocide, instead of heeding the popular movement demanding an end to its  complicity, the British government doubled down on its strategy of repressing and silencing the Palestine solidarity movement at the end of June, with an unprecedented ban on Palestine Action, an organisation which has played an important role in the movement. Palestine Action is a non-violent direct-action organisation which targets weapons manufacturers providing arms to Israel, aiming to physically disrupt the supply chains for genocide. It has been particularly effective in forcing several sites in Britain owned by Elbit Systems (Israel’s biggest arms manufacturer, with which Adani collaborates on lethal Hermes drones) to close down. The proscription of Palestine Action places it in the same category as organisations previously banned in Britain under draconian terrorism legislation, a list which already includes most of the armed groups resisting the US-Israel axis in West Asia, making expressions of support for Palestine's right to resist a risky endeavour in Britain. However, this new move for the first time directly targets a non-violent solidarity organisation based in the UK itself under anti-terror legislation, making even public expressions of support for Palestine Action punishable with a jail sentence of up to 14 years. The Starmer government cynically pushed the ban through Parliament by clubbing Palestine Action with two little-known Neo-Nazi groups, seeking a ban on all three. 

The ban came into force on 5 July amidst mass protests proclaiming ‘We are all Palestine Action and multiple legal challenges. A few days later the first of many groups of protestors tested the new conditions by carrying placards stating ' I Oppose Genocide, I Support Palestine Action' leading to the spectacle of police publicly arresting people holding these signs including an 83-year old retired Christian priest, Sue Parfitt, and charging them with terrorism offences. As was the intention, the ban is being interpreted by the police as applying far beyond Palestine Action itself, and the wider aim is clearly to have a chilling effect on pro-Palestine protests. Meanwhile, the Filton 23, members of Palestine Action, remain incarcerated and denied bail in a case predating the ban, relating to alleged actions at the main Elbit research and development site in Filton, Bristol. They include students, teachers and health workers; the youngest, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, is a 20-year-old student of Gujarati heritage, who has been remanded in jail for almost a year to date, and has faced acute Islamophobia and racism from the prison authorities.

In Parliament the banning of Palestine Action was opposed vigorously by a small section of Left MPs including the independent group led by Jeremy Corbyn, some left MPs who remain in the Labour Party, (several of whom are currently suspended after voting against the government's slashing welfare benefits and its refusal to end the coercive two-child benefit cap which has left many households struggling),  and some Green Party MPs.  The day after the Parliamentary debate on the proscription, Zarah Sultana, the young, outspoken and popular MP for Coventry South, resigned from the ruling Labour Party and announced plans to launch a new party which would be jointly led by herself and Jeremy Corbyn. For many this is an initiative long overdue, at least since Corbyn’s resignation as Labour leader in 2019 after a concerted smear campaign by pro-Israel groups. It is all the more necessary as the Starmer government lurches further and further to the right in a hopeless attempt to win back voters who have turned in large numbers the far-right Reform Party, by regurgitating the latter's racist anti-migrant propaganda and policies, even as its pro-corporate policies deepen unemployment and poverty in the very ‘belly of the beast’ of imperialism. A recent speech by Keir Starmer referred to Britain becoming an 'island of strangers', directly echoing an inflammatory 1968 anti-immigration speech by notorious racist demagogue Enoch Powell. As another summer of far-right riots looms, Starmer’s government is only doubling down on this desperate mimicry.

72,000 people signed up in the first three days to participate in the new initiative announced by Zarah Sultana and polls are currently suggesting that the potential new party, if launched, could attract votes on par with the Labour Party. But it is still unclear whether the coming weeks will see an effective consolidation of a new political force bringing together left independent, ex-Labour and progressive Green MPs and grassroots activists on a platform of economic justice, anti-racism, and committed anti-imperialism.