KILLED FOR PROTESTING The tragic bicentenary of the Chatterton Weavers’ Massacre is marked

LANDWORKER MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2026  

KILLED FOR PROTESTING

The tragic bicentenary of the Chatterton Weavers’ Massacre is marked 

All photographs of Mark Harvey of ID8 photography and are copyright 

The unveiling of a headstone marking the 200th anniversary of the Chatterton Massacre outside Ramsbottom brought together a large crowd who following a colourful, musical procession listened solemnly to speeches, dedications and songs at the exact spot and time where the tragedy took place in 1826. The names of the six people killed in the massacre were read aloud and a wreath was laid. 

The event was organised by the Weavers’ Uprising Bicentennial Committee (WUBC), a registered charity established to remember the handloom weavers uprising across Lancashire on April 24 to 27 that year.

WUBC has also arranged talks, walks, exhibitions and launched a children’s education pack.  

UNITE members, along with other trade unionists and local people paid tribute to a struggle aimed at preserving a way of life based around the domestic workshop in an era when new machinery was reducing lives to abject poverty. 

Refusing to show mercy the authorities met this resistance with great brutality. Officially six people were killed but the exact figure is unknown and Colonel Kearney believed ten were killed by his troops. 

There are also contemporary newspapers reports that 3 people were shot dead on 24 April 1826 in Blackburn. 

Others, imprisoned and/or deported to Australia died in custody. Some of their relatives attended on April 26, 2026. 

The massacre, which remained largely unknown until recent years, has been added by historians to an expanding record of undocumented incidents involving the killing of workers by the British state.   (1) 

The handloom - one of man’s oldest and simplest inventions - workers were starving. Strikes and petitions to get employers and Parliament to act by introducing a minimum wage to alleviate their sufferings remained unanswered.

Inspired by a great sense of betrayal these independent artisans, who spent several months planning their activities, organised an uprising.

‘Captains’ agreed that to make their point peacefully then only power looms should be destroyed. There should be no violence to persons.

Starting on Monday April 24, 1826, they succeeded in destroying 1,100 newly installed factory-based power looms around Chorley, Clitheroe, Bacup and Bury over 4 days when they knew the military would be heavily involved in the official birthday celebrations of King George IV in Manchester. 

One month earlier the Shadsworth home of William Carr, Clerk to the County Justices, had all its windows broken.  Only when a gun was fired at them did the unmasked crowd depart. 

Accrington’s Grange Lane Factory was destroyed by a 1,000-strong crowd, some carrying crude pikes and sledgehammers. 

The military were overwhelmed and additional troops were rushed from Manchester to Blackburn. Nevertheless, on the Tuesday the authorities couldn’t keep pace with insurgents. Men and women wrecked factories around Darwen and Helmshore. 

When 23 arrests were made the angry crowd, who had defied the reading of the Riot Act that gave troops power to open fire, was so large outside the New Inn, Haslingden that it was found prudent to release prisoners without charge. 

Then came the events of Wednesday 26 April. The Whitehead Brothers factory near Haslingden was incapacitated. 

Five miles away stood Messrs Aitken and Lord Chatterton’s factory of 46 power looms. Success and it was on to Bury and Manchester. Colonel Kearney, in charge of the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards, ordered his troops to Chatterton. They were met by a large crowd of 3,000 - many starving and exhausted. 

What happened next is contentious. For generations it has been claimed that a local magistrate and employer, William Grant, read out the Riot Act.  

This Act authorised officials to read a proclamation ordering groups of 12 or more people to disperse. If the crowd did not leave within an hour, authorities could use force to disperse them. 

However, recent research by Dr David Scott of the Open University 

and local historian Kate Hurst has revealed that no one interviewed afterwards stated there was any such reading and some categorically claimed Grant had remained silent. 

According to Scott the subsequent shootings in which 400 to 600 bullets were fired over a 30-minute period into the crowd, by professional marksmen, makes Chatterton not a riot but ‘a massacre.’ 

Others suffered terrible injuries. It was a miracle many more were not killed. Which may explain why, unlike on the other 3 days, so few people were arrested on the 26th. It meant their testimonies were never recorded. 

Two hundred years later, among those present is Catherine Boyle. Simeon Wright is her four times great grandfather. 

Catherine said, “This event makes history real. You get a sense of continuity by speaking about someone in your own family who went through such hard times but bravely stood up to do something and lost his life as a result.”

Addressing the crowd, Ken Cridland from Blackpool Fylde and Wyre TUC brought the weavers’ struggles up to date. “Off the Blackpool coast is a gas rig. Unite is demanding there should be no ban without a plan. The change over from fossil fuels has to work for us all – not the way it was done when they brought the power looms that threw everyone out of work.”

Unite member Brian Rylance is with the Bolton Diggers Group. He said, “If people don’t learn their history they don’t realise the significance of attacks now. They lose sight of the need for solidarity and looking out for each other. We must try and instil this in the next generation.”

Brian has clearly succeeded himself as one daughter is a UNISON branch chairperson and another is a UCU rep. 

“The occasion has been fantastic. We must get it into classrooms.” Which is happening through a high-quality education pack, Rise Up! The Lancashire Weavers’ Rising and Chatterton Massacre that is aimed at key stage 2 children. 

WORKERS KILLED 

James Whatacre (or Waddicar), aged 40, of Ramsbottom.

Mary Simpson, handloom weaver, 23, of Haslingden  

James Rothwell, handloom weaver, 22, of Haslingden

Richard Lund, blacksmith, 23, of Haslingden

James Lord, fulling miller, 26, of Rossendale

John Ashworth, handloom weaver, 27, of Haslingden 

The six names were loudly read out on 26 April 2026 at the newly unveiled headstone. A wreath was laid. 

WORKERS ARRESTED  

OF those arrested, 47 were subsequently sentenced for taking part. 

Mary Hindle, was sentenced to death, along with thirty-five men and five women.

Her sentence and nine others was commuted to life transportation to Australia.

Leaving behind her husband and six-year-old daughter, Mary set sail on the convict ship Harmony in April 1827. She arrived five months later but took her own life in 1841.

Simeon Wright, a 37-year-old cotton spinner from Samlesbury Mill, was one of the leaders of the first day of the Rising. He was incarcerated  in Lancaster Castle before being moved to the prison hulk Dolphin to await his transportation to Australia. He died before it set sail on March 1, 1827.

Oswaldtwistle’s James Chambers, aged 55, was a widowed farmer with 3 grandchildren. He had been a ‘captain’ of the Rising on the first and final day in Chorley. Chambers was charged with destroying machinery. 

He was sentenced to transportation and transferred to the Dolphin, where he was held with at least seven others involved in the uprising, including Wright.

James Chambers did not make it out England, dying on May 7, 1827.

FIND OUT MORE 

Weavers’ Uprising Bicentennial Committee https://www.weavers-uprising.org.uk

1. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J_VXf_IIVs Sunderland's Peterloo: Remembering the 1825 North Sands Massacre

THE RURAL WORKERS’ STRIKE – Rural mining communities were deeply affected by the General Strike

 

THE RURAL WORKERS’ STRIKE – Rural mining communities were deeply affected by the General Strike

Unite Landworker magazine – Summer 2026

Mining communities across rural areas were central to the 1926 General Strike, the background to which was the national Lock-Out, on 1 May of 1.2 million miners who had refused to agree to coal owners’ demands for reductions in pay and conditions.

During WWI, with private enterprise unable to keep the fires of war burning, the government had to take control of several major industries, including coal, the primary energy source.

Once the war ended, the government responded to calls to nationalise the coal industry by setting up a Royal Commission, that subsequently dismissed this proposal.

Mine owners immediately demanded cuts in pay and conditions. In return the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain appealed to the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) and the Transport Workers’ Federation to join them in a General Strike.  (1) When both bodies refused the subsequent miners’ defeat became known as “Black Friday.”

With the USA and Germany heavily investing in their own coal industries, Britain’s coal exports continued falling. In 1925, coal owners again announced cuts in pay and conditions. The Trades Union Congress (TUC), fresh from co-ordinating successful strike action by 250,000 Yorkshire textile workers, brought together various groups of workers such as the Transport and General Workers. On July 31, 1925 a strike of mine, transport and transport workers was due to begin.

This forced Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative government, elected in 1924 in a rigged general election in which the Secret State was key, to provide a subsidy to the mining owners. This victory for the labour movement was termed Red Friday.

At the same time, the government set up another Royal Commission, which lacked trade union representation, to examine the coal industry.

They also established the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies. This was a secretive emergency services organisation, which complied registers of people willing to help run certain industries, including the railways and buses, were compiled. The police, army and navy were given detailed contingency orders.

Meanwhile, the trade unions sat and waited. No plans were constructed about how to act if the Commission overlooked the miners’ demands. Which proved to be the case.

The Tories ended their coal subsidy and the Mining Association owners re-announced proposed cuts. The miners dug deep and refused to budge. 1.2 million were thus locked out.

On Saturday, May 1, 1926, the TUC established a negotiating committee to defend the miners and announced that a first wave of strike action by essential trades in iron and steel, transport and docks, road transport, electricity and gas would begin at midnight on the Monday.

The government declared a state of emergency and 1.75 million workers then walked out on May 3^rd with a second line of workers due to be called out on Wednesday, May 12.

On May 11, a well-attended meeting organised by striking railworkers, strikers from other workplaces and Kent Mineworkers’ Association members was held in Whitstable. Kent trade unionists had shown great solidarity with many compositors and printers out alongside transport workers.

But the following day (May 12) the TUC called the General Strike off

 May, the very day the TUC called the General Strike following pressure from the government and the ruling classes. It was ended despite it enjoying enthusiastic support by strikers and trades councils.  

It was a historic victory for Baldwin’s government.

Only the miners continued the fight. The following months saw support from local trades councils - who where they covered agricultural districts in places such as Cambridge and Oxford organised public meetings in surrounding villages to prevent a loss of morale in such districts. (1) - and the Labour Party who formed relief committees to raise money for miners’ wives and their families.

At first, this helped miners to refuse to return, so that it was only on November 16 that those employed at Tilmanstone Colliery in Kent, finally voted to do so.

It had been a heroic endeavour but eventually all the miners were forced to return to work on much reduced terms and conditions. Many were blacklisted including in rural communities in Kent and Durham.

These included miners in rural communities in Kent and Durham. Kent had 4 mines at Tilmanstone, a small village east of Dover, Snowdon, Chislet, where a six-month strike against wage reductions was organised in 1924, plus Betteshanger, where when the first shaft was cut in 1924 saw 1,500 miners arriving to find work.

Later, Betteshanger, where new houses for incomers were built on former agricultural land,  proved an attraction for victimised miners. Over subsequent decades it became a militant workplace – especially in the 1984-85 year-long national miners’ strike.

Around 150,000 miners in County Durham had waged a brave battle and had received great backing from trade unionists. The Newcastle joint strike committee consisted of 14 organisations, including Unite heritage union, the TGWU. It backed electricity industry strikers and published its own newspaper, the Newcastle Workers’ Chronicle.

Rural based pits dominated Durham. Burnhope Colliery in Craighead Valley lies 6 miles north west of Durham City, home to the Durham Miners’ Gala since 1871.

Aged 14 back then, Joseph Foster later recalled events there in 1926. “It was a terrible time. I saw the worst of the strike. No clothes, no shoes, no food … families couldn’t make ends meet.” He remembered soldiers being sent to Burnhope. “They were walking about with bayonets, with guns.” Many former military men were recruited to the police across County Durham.

Like many places the miners’ resistance was boosted by Labour authorities. In Durham the County Council provided millions of free school meals. Its chairman was Peter Lee, agent of the Durham Miners’ Association and the only trade unionist to have a town named after him in Britain. Peterlee is the birthplace of the author of this piece.

Despite this support it was insufficient to win the struggle. Durham held out for seven months, month longer than anywhere else and even by the end only 5.7%, the lowest anywhere, had returned to work in Durham. For many though there was to be no return.

Victimised by the mine owners, they struck out for Kent, in the hope of a better life. With the Tories then introducing anti-union laws, hopes were placed by the labour movement in the election of a Labour government.

 

Dedicated to Harold Metcalf and Wilf Charlton from Easington Colliery, both Locked Out in 1926.

Mark Charlton Metcalf

1.       As confirmed by a subsequent Labour Research Department survey.

Find Out More

Visit the Kent Mining Museum at Betteshanger Park, Sandwich Road, Deal CT14 0BF. Or visit https://www.kentminingmuseum.co.uk

 

Today 1999: British and immigrant workers combine in famous construction site victory

 1999: Dahl Jenson construction strike

Immigrants demonstrated their willingness, when asked, to support British workers in struggle in this victorious strike of 300 building workers employed by different firms.

The week before Mechanical Installers and Pipe Fitters working for Dahl Jenson found that cheques for the last three weeks work had bounced. With massive amounts of overtime being worked some workers had lost as much as £2,000, although these figures were the exception as the workers calculated that the £55,000 in total owed was split between almost 100 workers.

Meanwhile Dahl Jenson had disappeared from the site next to Waterloo Station, where a building was being refurbished under the Government's Private Finance Initiative to turn it into a teaching college for student nurses. Responsibility for ensuring the work got completed on time was with Bouynes, a French construction giant.

Workers employed by other firms on the site continued to work normally. The ex-Dahl Jenson workers did not ask them for support, even when standing outside the site entrance on Monday and Tuesday the 5th and 6th of July 1999 seeking their wages.

The workers had approached the Joint Sites Committee (JSC) for assistance, this could best be described as 'broad left' (a left-wing grouping) and the building workers union, UCATT had been informed. Two officials from the union turned up on July 7th and generally played a positive role throughout the day.

The JSC produced a leaflet for the day stating 'no work will take place on this site until all the building workers are paid the money they have worked for'. Considering what had gone before this was a brave forecast, particularly as only one member of the JSC turned out in the first hour on July 7th.

Amongst those working for the other firms on the site were members of a range of ethnic groups. These included Kosovans, Albanians, Latvians, Russians, Portuguese and French. There were also individuals from Poland, Croatia, Italy and Denmark. Add this to the English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish lads employed by Dahl Jenson and you had quite a mix!

With the national and local news crammed full of scare stories about immigrants and asylum seekers it was unsurprising to find some suspicion and a degree of hostility amongst British workers towards the workers from other countries. We were told as a group of what turned out to be Kosovans approached "it's no use speaking to them, they don't speak English". One worker said there been "a lot of nicking" on the site and implied "it's the Albanians" as "they're working for nowt". Not quite, but at £3 an hour not far off the mark!

As it turned out some did speak English but, not unnaturally, there was an unwillingness not to go to work. "We need the money". It was explained that some British workers supported the rights of Kosovans to be in the country but obviously with rights come responsibilities and one of these was not to cross picket lines or be used to undercut other workers rates of pay. This did the trick, they agreed and joined the picket-line.

It took a lot less time to persuade the French, some of whom were absolutely delighted to see "the English doing something". By this time 'the English' had dumped some of their prejudices and begun communicating to other workers from around the World.

Workers from Russia and Latvia, rates of pay £7.50 an hour, were under immense pressure from their employer to cross but they resisted and joined the growing number of pickets. Yes, they'd had unions in the Soviet Union but 'no' they weren't any good. Their spokesperson, Valeri, eight years in London had also "never seen the union" in that time. Nevertheless they knew where their class interests lay.

By 8.30am there were 300 pickets on the gate, no work was taking place, deliveries were being turned away and machinery due to be picked up and moved elsewhere remained idle.

On a beautiful, in more ways than one, sunny day officials from UCATT were sent inside with a couple of workers to see Bouynes management. Before they did so it was agreed that the demands would be extended from getting all back pay to no victimisation of those workers refusing to cross the picket-line with no loss of pay.

Apparently Bouynes management were not too keen claiming that the wages were owed by the sub-contractors. Perhaps, but as the job was now stopped it was difficult to say it had nothing to do with them.

Outside there was tremendous interest in joining UCATT, and in the Working Time Directive, which limits the maximum number of hours to 48 a week and gave workers, for the first time, a legal minimum holiday entitlement of 15 days a year (in November 1999 this increased to 20).

Emerging from the meeting UCATT officials said that whilst Bouynes were reluctant they had asked for a list of those owed money along with the amounts. Meanwhile they had said they would be contacting their Head Office in France.

There was a scramble to make sure the list was correct, at the same time a lad from Middlesbrough could be overheard telling a latecomer that the "foreigners are bloody marvellous".

A couple of hours later, and following speeches which urged workers to stick together, handshakes and thanks all round, the officials went back in and emerged to let workers know that Bouynes had agreed to pay workers two weeks wages and consider them for any jobs on the site. Those owed £2,000 got just over £1,000, not a complete victory but not bad. Most were pleased.

It had been agreed that there would be no victimisation of those who had stayed out and they would be paid. A hundred had joined UCATT, some had volunteered to become union stewards and union officials had promised to go and see their bosses about holidays with pay.

What was needed next was a mass meeting of workers shortly afterwards and a stewards committee established. This would have meant workers could get support from the officials but act independently of them when they needed to. This did not happen.

Some lessons
For future action, it is worth bearing in mind the following lessons:
· That the organising of proper picketing remains the most important element of winning any strike
· That solidarity between workers of different nationalities can be forged through struggle
· The threat of the anti-trade union laws can be defied, and must be if workers are to win
· That workers can win
· New laws on Working Time Directives should be utilised
· Anti-racism is not an academic exercise but part of a life and death struggle

By Mark Metcalf
Revolutions Per Minute

Reproduced from RPM booklet: Fighting to Win at:-  https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/fightingtowin.pdf

THIS SATURDAY - An annual event at the oldest domestic abuse commemoration site in the world

 

 

An annual event at the oldest domestic abuse commemoration site in the world that remembers all the victims, honours the survivors and resolves to end domestic abuse.

Watch also:- 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um0MtKGQA58

Read also:- 

https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/dont-walk-by-vprint.pdf

 

Trades Council statement that was read by Mark Metcalf at the Peter Oborne meeting on 19 June 2026 on Palestine

 

Trades Council statement that was read by Mark Metcalf at the Peter Oborne meeting on 19 June 2026 on Palestine

Calderdale Trades Union Council exists to bring together trade unionists across sectional divides, and to work with social movements in order to advance the politics of socialism.

Internationalism has long been vital to this work. We are proud to have supported Halifax Friends of Palestine over many years, and to have joined in solidarity with you on your marches, vigils and other innovative protests that have refused to let the question of Palestine slip from people’s minds. It’s an honour to co-host this event tonight.

We believe in the centrality of an internationalist politics as part of trades union organising. To this end we have hosted speakers such as Andrew Feinstein and Professor Paul Rogers, and we held a launch event with Alex Gordon of CND for their Alternative Defence Review.

The international situation is defined by the ongoing assault of the USA and Israel against Lebanon and Iran, and the heinous genocide in Palestine. Iran and Lebanon have been savagely bombed on the unfounded pretext that Iran poses an immediate threat to the USA.

For the first time in many years, this bombing has sparked open disagreement between NATO nations. Yet Atlanticism dies hard – despite some grumbling, British bases have been used to launch raids on Iran by American bombers, and to run surveillance flights over Gaza.

European NATO powers are concerned that Trump’s forays in Western Asia / Middle East have gone in tandem with reduced interest in the war in Ukraine. The American government seems interested in a deal with Putin’s Russia to carve up Ukraine and allow them access to valuable mineral resources. Meanwhile, the UK continues to back the Ukrainian government with millions of pounds worth of weapons, as well as urging European allies to do likewise.

Russia itself is an oligarch state, and members of this trades council have raised funds previously to support political prisoners jailed for supporting a more democratic Russia. Nevertheless, it’s clear that despite having supported Putin’s rise and welcomed him as a partner in the ‘war on terror’, European policy is now to bring Russia to its knees in order to further exploit its markets and resources. Where Trump stands on this remains unclear.

The trans-Atlantic alliance has long been central to British and European security, and our military establishment have bound our security and defence systems tightly to those of the US. At Trump’s encouraging, European powers are now in a race to rearm. Germany has committed to spending 5% of GDP on the military and war-related infrastructure by 2025. Canada too are moving towards the target of 5%. Achieving this target will require huge cuts to public spending and services in other sectors. When John Healey and Al Carns resigned from the Defence Ministry in the UK recently, we should be clear what they’re arguing for. The poor, the sick, the disabled and the elderly can go to hell and the sooner the better: the war machine needs to be fed.

Austerity will be stepped up to pay for war. The NEU are already fighting proposed cuts to education and will be running a national ballot for strike action from October. Healthcare unions too have been running campaigns for more funding to improve pay, reduce workload and properly fund service provision. Meanwhile, UCU have been drawing attention to the ailing finances of universities. New money for education and healthcare has been scant. But the new Defence secretary Dan Jarvis has already signalled that some way or another, more money will be found for the military. Why pour monies into education when many of those educated are going to be needed on the barricades?

Meanwhile, a police state is emerging through the policing of protests against Isreal’s genocide and support for the Palestinians right to resist Apartheid. This state – whether under Reform, Tory or Labour - will be further enforced when, not if, resistance is made by the working class to the further destruction of the NHS.

Our world is defined by the decline of American power, but like a wounded tiger this power lashes out aggressively and unpredictably. American attention is trained on China. For now, the 2 country’s economies are too tightly entangled but Trump’s tariffs agenda is slowly changing this. American-provoked conflict with China cannot be ruled out in future and of course there are plenty of political actors in Europe keen to back it, especially if in doing so they can bring down Russia and get access to its resources.

The question then becomes, what are we going to do about all this? Do we want our kids being taken off to war? Do we want a police state alongside degraded public services?

For this trades council, the answer to these questions is a firm NO. We want welfare, not warfare. But to achieve this we need to build a better organised opposition, including a mass working-class party intent on achieving a world based not on profit but on people. Such a party does not yet exist, though I know many in this room will have been working towards one. The trades council cannot be such a body, but in the meantime we can act as an orgnisation that unites trades union members and the working class across divisions and sectors.

Are you in a trade union? If so, make sure your branch affiliates to Calderdale TUC. If not, join one! Sign up to our mailing list tonight, and speak to us if you’d like support our work, get to know which union to join or about getting affiliated to the TUC.

“To be fair she did not take history” - Oxbridge educated Baroness Carr attacked for her ignorance

 

“To be fair she did not take history”

 

Oxbridge educated Baroness Carr attacked for her ignorance

 

Twice arrested now, Steve S, a great long standing friend of mine, has been good enough to offer his thoughts on whether the comparison between the Suffragettes and Palestine Action is seemingly distasteful. Readers can make up their own minds. Directly below this interview is an earlier one with Steve from last year and for reasons unknown which I did not put up on this blog at the time.

 

 I was amongst the hundreds of people outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday 15/06/26, awaiting the Appeal Court decision in respect of Ammori Vs Secretary of State - Palestine Action.

Things were not auspicious. On Friday at Woolwich Crown Court Justice Johnson used his sentencing powers to commit some of the `Elbit` activists as though they were terrorists. This was novel and unprecedented.

 

So, despite no accusation of terrorism, no CPS charge of terrorism, no trial based on terrorism - and without the jury being aware of his intentions. The judge had earlier cited a defence barrister for contempt for telling the jury they can make a decision based on their conscience (jury equity). This was unprecedented. Subsequently the Appeal Court ruled that to be ultra vires.

 

Judge Johnson refused the defendants permission to explain their motivations to the jury, yet he went to great pains to interpret (and opine on) their motivations himself, when sentencing.

Back to Monday: I was amongst approximately 120 `sitters`. Ready should the court uphold the government appeal. Craning to hear the loudspeaker, I could hear a number of references to Palestine Actions violence, covert operations, its opaque organisational structure etc. But the most galling were the comments which said that the PA cultivated this idea that they were the modern-day equivalent of the Suffragettes (the Women’s Social and Political Union) and how in their Justices opinion that was both incorrect and, seemingly, distasteful.

 

The Suffragettes were celebrated by female MP`s, in the Commons, on the very day that Yvette Cooper announced the proscribing of Palestine Action. Was this intentionally cynical or ironic?

 

The Suffragettes, have been canonised, in the same way that that `terrorist` Nelson Mandela     came to be several decades later.

 

I was brought up in the East End of London. I don’t have a degree. I did not go to a posh school or have an Oxbridge education. Baroness Carr of Walton went to Trinity College Cambridge. However she has put on record, in a landmark case, her ignorance of British history. I would be embarrassed. Well, to be fair she did not take history!

These are the facts:

The militant phase of the WSPU (1912–1914) involved:
"Cat and Mouse" and "Torching" Campaigns: Targeting infrastructure, including post offices, railway stations, and private residences (the firebombing of David Lloyd George’s country house in 1913, to point).

The WSPU manufactured and deployed devices that encased shrapnel (nuts and bolts) designed to maim or kill. In 1914 such a bomb was left at of Westminster Abbey. It did not ignite. It was a device intended to cause terror in a public space. Today called an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

Physical Violence: Beyond throwing a hatchet at Asquith (hitting Irish MP John Redmond), there were numerous assaults on the police and public officials and window-smashing campaigns that frequently escalated into violence against disagreeing members of the public.

It is believed that four people died as a result of their campaign. They were not only violent, but were indiscriminate as to whether innocent members of the public would be injured.

 

The judiciary is perpetuating a "Whig interpretation of history"- where the Suffragettes are viewed only through the lens of their eventual success (the vote), stripping their methods of their violent, dangerous, and "covert" realities.
The Suffragettes are now canonised as heroes of British democracy, the court- and the public tends to treat them as the "gold standard" for civil disobedience.

The Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr, made much of Palestine Action being "covert" because they use cells and try to avoid arrest. For her information WSPU also used highly secretive, decentralised cells (the "militant" wing) specifically to evade the police. 

 

It is so obviously logical that any activists taking direct action will be covert. None would want to be discovered before carrying out their action. However, overwhelmingly, once `achieved` the activists remained, or were detained, `on site`. By being apprehended, they could explain their motivation to a jury.

 

Far from revelling in their achievements the aim was to get as much publicity for the least `cost`. The damage to each `target` being mostly symbolic and imaginative. The publicity to the cause, priceless.

Food for thought - had those activists really wanted to stop production at those factories would they not have set fire to them. They did not do that. No person has been targeted by Palestine Action. Any injury caused was accidental and unintentional.

 

No Justices, the aim was to publicise the cause, to get public support and to inform.

In my 67 years I have been on countless marches, lobbies, demonstrations for, or against, something. Overwhelmingly they have been aimed at changing, or stopping a change to, government policy. Now is any dissent now to be classed as terrorism - as the government of the day sees fit. The `Junior` doctors become `a threat to national interests` when picketing a hospital. Will they be `terrorists` next?

 
Contrast this to last summer; `asylum hotels` were targeted by organised right-wing groups (funded from abroad) who damaged property, assaulted staff, residents and the police, racially abused them, set fire to bins and attempted to set fire to at least one hostel. The same has happened in Southampton and in Belfast very recently. None of those incidents or organisers has been classed as `terrorism` and yet it would appear to meet the criteria. So this is two tier policing.

 

The Justices comments in handing down their ruling were factually inaccurate. They were not legal opinion, they were political.

 

It is no coincidence that Gaza and the plight of Palestinians; Israel’s continuing genocide; the British Government complicity in aiding and abetting; war crimes; did not get an airing at the Appeal Court. It was the Elephant in the room that Judge Johnson, and now the Chief Justices have chosen to turn a blind eye to.

The Appeal Court decision bears no relationship to justice. We all know that Israel is getting away with mass murder. Early on the state attempted to smear Palestine Action by seeding stories that Iran was funding it. The truth is that it is Israel and its arms affiliates that have manipulated, influenced and lobbied, in all areas of the British establishment.

 

Thousands of us will continue to fight for justice for Palestine, for our own political prisoners, for accountability from our politicians and the denunciation of the state of Israel, to whom they are beholden.

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Lord Walney,

I am writing to you after reading the Hansard report of the debate Palestine Action: Protest Arrests, held on Wednesday, 23rd July 2025.

 

I am 66 years old. I had never been arrested in my life. I had not been on a march nor joined a protest for decades.

On Saturday, 19th July, I was arrested in Parliament Square. I was taking part in a silent, peaceful protest at the foot of the Gandhi statue. My `offence` - wearing a t-shirt which read "I oppose genocide”, “ I support Palestine Action” and on the back "Why is Israel getting away with murder?"

I wish to address each of these points directly.

On the accusation of genocide:

That Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank is not a radical, alternative, outlandish theory. Independent bodies and individuals, armed with empirical evidence, have concluded that genocide and war crimes are and have been committed. These figures include a former Israeli Prime Minister, Chief of Staff, former Defence Minister and Israeli human rights organisations. All have reached the same conclusion that millions of people watching the daily news have done.

You will be aware that Israel’s finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have openly stated their wish to `eradicate` Gaza and its population. Just yesterday, at the `Temple Mount`, Ben-Gvir reiterated this intention.

When these ministers openly declare their Genocidal intentions; are in charge of the means of implementing them; then enact them, what other conclusion can be drawn?

The current Israeli government, with cheerleaders like Daniella Weiss, long dropped any pretence of respectability. Its hatred for Palestinians is extreme, its actions obscene. Its sense of impunity manifest.

The starvation of Palestinians, the daily massacres of those queuing for `aid`, the demolition of neighbourhoods, the bombing of hospitals, the abduction, torture, and murder of detainees - these are not random acts. They are systematic expressions of a country consumed by anger and grief, extracting revenge for the horrific murders of October 7th, by collectively punishing the entire population of Gaza. This is not war. It is a "final solution" being carried out before our eyes, in real time.

On supporting Palestine Action:

I had never heard of this organisation prior to the Brize Norton incident. This act put it in the news. The subsequent proscription turbo-charged it from a news item to international notoriety. My support for Palestine Action is a moral and political one. Palestine Action is bringing attention to genocide and to my country`s complicity in genocide.

I am not in favour of silence dissenting voices. I am not in favour of draconian measures. In this case an organisation - which may have committed crimes against property - silenced with the use of terrorism legislation. This is a political action. I consider proscription to be anti-democratic, oppressive and unjust.

As a citizen, am I able to protest against the proscription of a nonviolent organisation - irrespective whether I support its aims or tactics - without falling foul of the law myself? If the answer is no, then my freedom of speech and peaceful assembly may no longer exists.

On the charge of "murder":

I do not flinch from calling out the state of Israel for committing murder. We see the evidence every day on our screens: bombing, shelling, strafing. Shooting civilians "like fish in a barrel". Arbitrary detention, torture and death. Israeli soldiers have been gleefully recorded carrying out these actions. Others, horrified by what they have witnessed - and taken part in - have become `whistleblowers`. Mass, hateful, debased hysteria has gripped some parts of Israeli society, unchecked and actively goaded on by some of those in power.

I pose the same point to you that I have put to Members of the Commons: When a foreign state seems to have more influence over my government's legislation and policies than I do, as a citizen, what does that say about democracy? Israel, as you are well aware, uses funding, lobbying, and patronage, which I consider has corrupted our politicians, political discourse and Parliament.

I do not belong to any group. My decision to demonstrate was driven by my profound frustration that genocide is being committed on yours and mine watch - while we appear to be doing nothing.

The people I met on Saturday 19th at the foot of Ghandi`s statue were silent, humble, stoic and courageous and soaked!. I was deeply moved by their dignity and honoured to be amongst them, however briefly. The sleeping British lion has stirred from its slumber. Now awake it  may prove to be a force to be reckoned with. The prisons may not be big enough.

I hope that you find my experience, not a unique one, to be a meaningful contribution to your deliberations. Even if you disagree with it, it is the lived experience of a growing number of people.

 

Sincerely,