Lessons From History: A Cautionary Tale Of Cant, Deceit & Shame

 

If the group Palestine Action and/or its members have broken the law then they should and must be punished but the comments by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, the government and the Met have thrown the net wider to include anyone who has an opinion on the matter. Worse still is the fact that Cooper and the Met's defence of the proscription of Palestine Action and the promised/threatened arrest of anyone showing any support for the group is one we have heard before over the years - namely that anyone who protests or is at a protest is, by definition and association a criminal or intent on criminal action; in short an enemy of the state. It all has the same tired and deceitful ring about it as Margaret Thatcher's 1980s verdict on Nelson Mandela and his political associates. Thatcher told us then that Mandela was a terrorist and so was his party, the ANC for fighting against the injustices of apartheid. Supporters of Mandela in this country and those critical of South Africa's apartheid regime were dismissed, vilified and arrested too, in the same manner as Ms Cooper now plans but by Thatcher and her Tory party. Until, that is, Nelson Mandela wasn't a terrorist. He was released from 25 years incarceration and became an international hero, a superstar, a President of South Africa, the moral conscience of the world who politicians from across the planet, including Margaret Thatcher, came to worship, almost prostrating themselves for every photo opportunity to be seen in his company. Cant and deceit in shedloads - the same cant and deceit we now see in this present Labour government.

One would have hoped that by the 21st century (and a Labour government to boot) the Home Secretary, the government and the police would have moved on from the tired and sadly predictable logic and justifications put forward in the past as excuses for unwarranted state violence against protestors - who, just as in Margaret Thatcher's time, are now being potentially criminalised for having an opinion. If we have learned anything from this sorry and outrageous mess it must be that in Britain in the summer of 2025 one can hold any opinion one desires - as long as it is the opinion of Home Secretary.

It all makes the great words of the German priest Martin Luther, one of the founders of the Protestant Church seem hollow. He would have got short shrift from Yvette Cooper and the Met in 1517 as he nailed his ninety five theses criticising the Catholic church on the church door and when later challenged refused to change his mind saying "Here I stand, I can do no other" - and in doing so changed the history of the world. That same history of the world is filled with stories of people who have lived and often died for their opinions and the right to hold them: Rosa Parkes, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Emily Pankhurst to name but four - and the vast majority are, as the wheel of history turns, vindicated and become national and international heroes, their once outrageous and/or illegal opinions becoming mainstream. In short today's "terrorists" often become tomorrow's "freedom fighters". That well established lesson is clearly lost on Ms Cooper and the present Labour government - she and they should be careful for I fear history might not judge them kindly.

Which brings me to the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester in 1819 when 60,000 peaceful protestors seeking parliamentary reform - to give us the democratic rights that we enjoy today - were attacked by the military leading to 18 deaths. It is a cautionary tale that should never have been repeated. This tragic event not only was instrumental in greater parliamentary reform and voting rights being granted to a wider group of people but indirectly led to the establishment of one of the world's great newspapers The Guardian established in 1821 and originally called The Manchester Guardian - my companion of seventy years - and whose guiding principle is the phrase used by its great editor CP Scott: "The facts are sacred, opinion is free". Yvette Cooper and the Met would do well to heed Scott's words. The events of this summer and of the past prove that we have not learned from past events nor, it seems, does our Home Secretary subscribe to Scott's wisdom; for Ms Cooper, it seems, opinion is not free - it is what she says it is. A century after Peterloo, in 1919 the British Army in India fired on a peaceful gathering of people in Jallianwala Bagh, a quiet garden in Amritsar leading to over 300 deaths. The echoes of that day still ring through history and blight our relationship with that vast country. When we visited that beautiful garden some years ago the atmosphere of injustice and sorrow still pervaded the scented air of Jallianwala Bagh a century after the murder by the British army. And, finally, few of my generation will forget what became known as the Battle of Orgreave in 1984 when police, under instruction from Margaret Thatcher's government, charged striking coal miners. Many of the police brought into Nottinghamshire from forces throughout the land during the miners' strike were billeted in my village and I still vividly remember their gung-ho conversations, night after night in the village pubs - how they were going to give the miners what they deserved, no questions asked - then or now. The truth and responsibilities for Orgreave have never been fully disclosed - and probably never will for that is the nature of coercive governments everywhere, they keep their secrets close to their chests lest their actions bring retribution; think Putin's Russia for one example of many.

The government, military and police justifications for each of these events was like that now being used against the supporters of Palestine Action: namely, the protestors are not simply ordinary people expressing their opinion but "terrorists", plotting to "overthrow the police and the court system". Peaceful protestors are increasingly represented as enemies of the state in what it suits the government and police to increasingly frame as a war. And in war, the normal rules and niceties no longer apply, so a government has carte blanche to do as it will; no questions asked, now or in the future. It is straight out of the Peterloo, the Jallianwala Bagh, and the Orgreave playbooks. Yvette Cooper, the Labour government and the Met should learn from their and our history and then hang their heads in shame - they are seeking to justify the unjustifiable, the “gross abuse of state power”.