As the UK government moves to proscribe Palestine Action, a wider crackdown on protest and dissent unfolds — but amid the polarisation and political fallout, there remains a fragile hope for peace in Gaza says Herald columnist Calum Steele

In the days before the then Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, made it official, I was interviewed by a national radio station seeking my views on the widely trailed proposal to formally proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. Referencing Monty Python, I suggested that such a move had the potential to give rise to a Judean People’s Front-type response, as the wider sense of hopelessness and desperation which drove many ordinary citizens to protest – who had absolutely no link or affiliation to the organised group that vandalised warplanes at RAF Brize Norton – would still remain, and crucially, still demand a political response.

The consequences I warned of have, entirely predictably, come to fruition. Hundreds of ordinary men and women have since been arrested and now face trial simply for demanding action on the plight of the people of Palestine. Whether they are convicted of supporting the terrorist organisation Palestine Action or not is, of course, debatable (I suspect the overwhelming majority will not), but their arrests alone will ensure their names feature on police and security service intelligence databases – which they can neither see nor challenge – and will bring indirect consequences for years to........

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