Get ready for ‘The Big One’

The new campaign targeting the war machine at source

The government is clearly rattled by public outcry at the mass arrest of over 500 people opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and expressing support for the banned protest group Palestine Action.

Both Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones have taken to the airwaves to insist they posess secret knowledge proving the group was a “violent organisation” – a claim that co-founder Huda Ammori has vigorously condemned as defamatory.

All this begs the question: if, as Cooper told the BBC, the public “don’t know the full nature of this organisation”, then how exactly is the public supposedly ‘terrorised’ by it?

All the individuals who risked arrest and potential imprisonment under the Terrorism Act for resisting the ban are extremely courageous, but this is not a choice everyone can make. There are numerous consequences, as Netpol’s guide to the ban highlights, of a terrorism-related conviction.

However, a coalition of groups is now offering an alternative that doesn’t inevitably result in arrest but does challenge Britain’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza: a mass blockade of Britain’s largest arms fair, DSEI, on its opening day on 9th September.

This event in east London is where the defence industry, the military and politicians rub shoulders, with Israel regularly present and arms companies like Elbit Systems often in attendance.

Our Campaigns & Media Coordinator, Kevin Blowe, has written about the blockade, dubbed ‘The Big One’, and the push to mobilise thousands to make it impossible for arms trade delegates to comfortably network and strike deals.

You can find updates in the coming weeks at thebigone.uk.