By Thomas Necchi
“Where militarism rules, truth is always the first casualty” – Rev. Peter Storey
The Rule of Law
If you want a good laugh, go to the Government website page on the ‘rule of law’. A tenet of British legislation, unwritten just as much of constitutional law is, the rule of law is claimed as the lodestone of the British legal system. So important is the rule of law that in 2014 the government decided it should be taught in schools as a ‘fundamental British value.’ Defined by Lord Bingham in 2006 as meaning ‘all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of laws publicly and prospectively promulgated and publicly administered in the courts’, the rule of law can be understood in the following principles:
- The law must be accessible and, so far as possible, intelligible, clear and predictable.
- Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of discretion.
- The laws of the land should apply equally to all, save to the extent that objective differences justify differentiation.
- Ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise the powers conferred on them in good faith, fairly, for the purpose for which the powers were conferred, without exceeding the limits of such powers and not unreasonably.
- The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental human rights.
- Means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay, bona fide civil disputes which the parties themselves are unable to resolve.
- The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be fair.
- The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law.
Seems fair enough on paper. The page goes on to mention that various decisions and bills from previous governments have eroded the rule of law, citing the 2023 Migration Bill from the last Conservative government as a particularly shoddy, ill-thought out and violent example. The page ends with some hope that the incoming Labour government (it was written in 2024) should restore the rule of law and reverse the damage done to it.
All of this, from the principles of rule of law to its supposed restoration under Labour, would be news to the various Palestine Action protestors locked on various charges. It would be particularly laughable to the Filton 25 and all their supporters. Far from having restored the rule of law, Labour inherited the erosion started by past governments and took it even further. Having proscribed Palestine Action in July 2025, the government continued the sadistic and cruel treatment of prisoners which had been ongoing for some time. Writing in February 2025, Palestine Action writer Ravachol Mutt described the use of anti-terror laws as such:
It becomes abundantly clear that the counter terror laws are not being used in order to charge the actionists with a specific political crime they have allegedly committed, but because the category of ‘terrorist’ deprives them of rights that prisoners are supposed to be afforded; because it opens them up to another realm of violence. In essence, they are being pushed outside of the law, all the better to hurt them.
Even as recently as a few days ago at the time of writing, a story broke that said then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had written a newspaper column which had risked prejudicing an ongoing trial despite being warned of it beforehand.
The Trial
All of this can be seen in how the Filton trial unfolded. Twenty-five activists were charged with various alleged offences, and were remanded under counter terror laws despite the charges having nothing to do with terrorism. This was not the end of their mistreatment, for despite the action and alleged charges happening before the proscription, it became clear that the government wanted to treat this case as a terror prosecution, against all the facts and all the precedents in British law. When the initial trial did not get the state the verdict it wanted, the retrial was stitched up so it would produce the desired results.
Every person who stands trial is entitled to defend their actions as enshrined in British law. But all defences in this case were banned by the Judge before he even heard the evidence, meaning they weren’t allowed to argue that their actions were legally justified. In order to ensure a conviction, he barred the defendants from telling the jury about their motivations for taking action, even going so far as to ban the words “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing”. In the UK, juries always have the right to find defendants not guilty according to their conscience. In this case, the judge banned the defendants from telling the jury their legal rights and protesters outside who held placards regarding jury rights were arrested on site. The defence were not even allowed to tell the jury that the judge could not force them to convict. These extreme restrictions meant the barristers could not mount a defence without risking their careers, so the defendants had no choice but to fire their barristers and self-represent to give their own closing speeches. The protestors had acted to save lives and prevent the greater crime of genocide, but this, like so many other defences, has been banned from the courtroom.
In the first trial, Rajiv Menon, who was representing Lottie Head, did make the jury aware of their rights, telling them that the judge could not force them to convict. During his closing speech, Menon highlighted Bushell’s case from 1670. This was a case where Quakers accused of having ‘unlawfully assembled’ were being prosecuted, only for the jury to refuse to return an ‘acceptable verdict.’ This case is recognised as having established beyond question the independence of the jury. According to the Guardian, ‘Menon also read out the inscription of a plaque at the Old Bailey commemorating the case, which states that it “established the right of juries to give their verdict according to their convictions”.’ The jury did not convict the defendants of a single offence.
In response to this, Judge Johnson charged Rajiv Menon with contempt of court, essentially for successfully defending his pro-Palestine client. No barrister in British legal history has ever faced contempt of court for the contents of their closing speech. Luckily, upon taking this to the Court of Appeal, Rajiv Menon was successful in defeating the contempt of court proceedings.
On receiving the jury’s verdict, the prosecution did not apply to revoke their bail. The defendants who had been liberated after their first trial had spent months on bail outside prison with their families and friends without any issues. However, in a highly unusual move, Judge Johnson revoked that bail and sent them back to prison on the spot. They remain incarcerated until sentencing on June 12th.
The Stitch Up
That in and of itself, are a horrible series of examples of carceral repression taking place in the courts. But that wasn’t all. Despite only being tried for criminal damage, the judge kept secret from the jury that the defendants would be sentenced as terrorists. The implications of this act cannot be overstated. If it isn’t successfully challenged, any protestor can then face one charge at court but secretly be imprisoned as terrorists.
Part of the reason for this, as I can see it, is to ensure the activists did not escape the violence of incarceration. If they were just being sentenced for criminal damage, as the jury were led to believe, they would already have served their time after their 18 months in prison on remand. However, the terrorism link means they will serve longer sentences, and be listed as terrorists for life. Upon release, they will face extreme conditions for 10-15 years, which include having to register any new device, bank account, email addresses or relationship with the police. If they violate that licence, even if by accident, they could face another 5 years in prison.
Look at the principles of the rule of law above; do you think they have been applied here? Now compare this treatment to that which arms companies such as Elbit Systems and BAE Systems have received. When it became clear Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, did the Labour government ensure that nobody missed jail time? No, they suspended a small number of arms licences at best, but set up a loophole for F-35 fighter parts and anything going to Israel via the USA. Has Elbit ever received any punishment? No. As Declassified UK has exposed, they’ve been given contract after contract, with their Watchkeeper drone project costing the British taxpayer £1.5billion. They’ve committed human rights violations again and again, but as
Anna Stavrianakis points out, ‘the government treats each round of violence as a blank slate’ and never feels the need to escalate its response. For ordinary people trying to stop genocide? Ruined lives and prison sentences. For arms companies and war profiteers? More business opportunities and lucrative contracts.
But perhaps this is the same as it ever was. All men are equal under the law, it says, but as the writer Anatole France said: ‘The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’ The powerless and oppressed have always suffered under the law. What is banned and prohibited in practice has always targeted them. But now we find that even if there are defenses, means of acquittal which can be used, the state will just take that away regardless. The reason it does this, despite widespread resistance and condemnation (even from within), is because the alternative is letting western political dominance in the West Asie fall apart, and to let the military industrial complex be weakened. If it appears self-destructive on a domestic level, it is because on the international front world imperialism must be maintained, and the West’s attack dog must be kept alive. It is this same logic which led Starmer to allow the US to bomb Iran. As Mutt said, ‘Rather than risk its links with the settler colony, British law decided it would just tear itself apart.’ What we are witnessing, I would argue, is a very British state of emergency. The state holds no rallies, does not pronounce this state of exception, but instead tries to erode civil defences as if it were business as usual. More and more, it begins to resemble its younger sibling, Israel. For whatever the Filton 25 and other prisoners in Britain have suffered, Palestinian prisoners have suffered for longer and in greater intensity.
Old Tricks
We are not entering into new territory here. By reading history, the history of those who have struggled before us, we can learn exactly where we stand in this present moment. For not only have the tactics of repression been used before on other peoples, but the present emergency the British state finds itself in is also old hat. And by comparing to previous examples, we can see that this state is not a confident enemy operating at the height of its powers, but a dying behemoth which understands its days are numbered and so thrashes about with even greater intensity. What we see right now are the death throes of the beast.
How do we know this? Like I said, through historical comparison. For it was not that long ago when a certain apartheid state found itself in its last days, and so entered into a new stage of harsh brutal statecraft in order to try and save itself. In 1985, South Africa declared its first state of emergency, covering the Eastern Cape and the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vaal (PWV) area. South African History Online states that in this initial period, ‘the apartheid government’s complete clamp-down of citizens’ rights resulted in the numerous house arrests of influential anti-apartheid leaders, and the detaining of 2346 people under the Internal Security Act, in the attempts of ending internal resistance to the state’s power.’ However, when this failed to quell resistance and dissent, it was extended to the entire country in 1986. Under this state of emergency, and the laws which granted the government such powers, ‘control was not limited to controlling the freedom of movement of the aforementioned groups, but also included: the right to physical integrity; freedom of expression and of information; freedom of association; freedom of political association; freedom to gather and demonstrate peacefully; and the rights to personal freedom, among others.’ Does any of this sound familiar?
Or how about this? Along with the war against the anti-apartheid movement, South Africa was also caught up in an expensive conflict with Angola and Namibia (the latter called South West Africa at the time as it was under South African occupation). Fighting to assert its dominance and control over territory, the boer behemoth hastened its demise. Now, if only we were in a historical moment where the colonizers and imperialists were engaged in a war of expansion and conquest to try to reassert their authority…
We know what happened shortly after to apartheid; it is the responsibility of all free people of the world to ensure the same happens to Zionism and its genocidal, racist state by shattering British links to it. Any government which supports the genocide in Palestine suffers from association, and now the entity drags all its allies into self-destruction, its regional war turning into a maelstrom of rising gas and food prices. It is not a sustainable position. The only route to life in any kind of form worth living goes through Palestine. We must take the struggle there, renew a campaign of direct action against all those who would seek to profit from genocide and militarism, and break the chains which strangle not only those in Gaza and the West bank, but now the poorest and most vulnerable in our own societies. Those who struggle throughout the world know this, and now, everyone else must realise it for themselves. On this site and our social media, we record all such reverberations of the struggle, the acts of defiance which even now still catch all the enemies of life, freedom and dignity off guard – that is to say, the aftershocks of resistance. And as any who study earthquakes can tell you, sometimes it is the aftershocks which do the most damage.