Since 7 October 2023 the British state has cracked down on solidarity with Palestine, using anti-terror legislation to threaten, investigate, arrest, detain and charge activists. Some of the most recent high-profile examples of this are the terrorism charge levied against a member of the Irish rap-band Kneecap, criminal investigations into members of both Kneecap and punk duo Bob Vylan following their Glastonbury music festival performances in June and the designation of the direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

Kneecap

Kneecap member Liam O hAnnaidh was charged  with a terrorism offence on 22 May for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah – a proscribed organisation in Britain – in November 2024. His charge came six months after the alleged incident took place and only after Kneecap’s set at the Coachella music festival in the US in April. At their Coachella performance, Kneecap projected ‘Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes. Fuck Israel, free Palestine.’ The claims in the projection are demonstrably true: in March 2024 the UN reported that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission’ of acts of genocide had been met and in December 2024 Amnesty International published its findings that Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide against the Palestinian people. Just since Trump took office in January 2025 the US has approved $12bn in arms sales to Israel. 

The furore over the performance triggered a coordinated smear campaign against the band which included Kneecap being dropped by their US booking agent, widespread condemnations from British and Irish politicians and investigations from the London Met Police. O hAnnaidh was then formally charged with a terror offence.

Kneecap have stood their ground, denouncing the political policing as a ‘carnival of distraction’ from the ‘14,000 babies […] about to die of starvation in Gaza, with food sent by the world sitting on the other side of a wall’ while ‘once again the British establishment is focused on us.’ Hundreds of protesters turned up to Westminster Magistrates Court in support of O hAnnaidh and the right to stand in solidarity with Palestine at his first hearing in June. Following immense pressure from mainstream media and politicians, Kneecap were pulled from festival lineups in Germany and Britain. The organisers of Glastonbury music festival did not bow to the pressure, including from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer who said it would be ‘inappropriate’ for the band to play the festival, and confirmed Kneecap would still perform.

Glastonbury

However, the ‘impartial’ BBC – which livestreams the main stages of the music festival – refused to broadcast Kneecap’s set. It did live-stream the set of punk-duo Bob Vylan who appeared on stage just before Kneecap. During their performance, Bob Vylan led an electrified crowd in chants of ‘free free Palestine’ and ‘death, death to the IDF’. 

Immediately Bob Vylan became a target. US state officials revoked the duo’s visas, effectively cancelling their upcoming tour there; the band has been removed from music festival lineups across Europe and have been dropped by their agent. Glastonbury organisers threw the band under the bus and joined a string of politicians conflating the calls for the defeat of a foreign army currently enacting a genocide with calls for the murder of Jewish people. Bob Vylan have remained firm, refusing to apologise and stating: ‘We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. A machine whose own soldiers were told to use ‘unnecessary lethal force’ against innocent civilians waiting for aid. A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza… We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story. And whatever sanctions we receive shall be a distraction.’

Over the course of the five days the festival took place, from 25-29 June, 372 Palestinians were murdered by Israeli forces. Police have since launched a criminal investigation into members of Bob Vylan and stated Kneecap’s Glastonbury set will also be subject to a probe. In their packed set, Kneecap again denounced Israel’s genocide and spoke out in solidarity with Palestine Action as it faced being proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

Palestine Action

Palestine Action is a direct action group targeting Israeli weapons factories in Britain, most notably the Israeli military technology company Elbit Systems. Elbit Systems provides up to 85 per cent of the drones and land-based military equipment used by the Israeli military in their genocide against the Palestinian people. Palestine Action protests have largely consisted of spray painting buildings, blocking entrances and destroying weaponry. Their tenacity has resulted in a series of victories in England: in 2022 Elbit Systems’ London office was forced to shut down; in March 2024 its manufacturing site in Tamworth ceased activity; in November 2024 its factory in Manchester closed.

The British state has a long history of abusing counter-terrorism powers to suppress dissent. Most recently, it has been using these powers to try and intimidate protesters for Palestine. In a wave of arrests in 2024, a group of Palestine Action activists known as the Filton 18 were arrested and detained under the Terrorism Act. The activists remain in prison awaiting trials. Two supporters of the Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Society at SOAS, University of London were targeted and charged with terror offenses relating to a speech in which they allegedly supported the right of Palestinians to resist occupation and genocide – a right protected under the UN General Assembly 37/43. Their next court date is 24 October.

On 20 June, 2025, four Palestine Action activists were arrested for entering a Royal Air Force base and spray painting two planes. Planes regularly fly from this base to Britain’s air base in Cyprus. Since December 2023 Britain has launched at least 500 spy flights to Gaza from Cyprus to carry out surveillance and collect intelligence. The Ministry of Defence has refused to comment on the extent to which this intelligence is being shared with Israel. Following the action, the Labour government announced it would be pushing forward legislation to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

This sparked protests in Britain under the banner of ‘we are all Palestine Action’. The government has broadly failed in its attempt to paint the group as a threat to British national security. Even mainstream liberal press such as the Guardian condemned the plans to designate direct action as acts of terror as ‘setting a dangerous precedent by using terror laws to outlaw protest… The cost will be felt in press freedom, political accountability and the right to resist.’ 

On 2 July the government lumped Palestine Action in with two neo-nazi groups and moved a  motion in the British parliament that the groups should collectively be designated as terrorist organisations. The motion passed with 385 votes to 26. Palestine Action’s legal challenge to the ruling was rejected by the High Court. Now, in Britain, membership to or inviting support for Palestine Action carries a potential 14 year prison sentence. 

The majority (55 percent) of the British public is against Israel’s actions according to a recent YouGov poll. The majority view is contrary to the actions of the British state which historically helped to set up the Zionist state on stolen Palestinian lands and which today funds, arms and politically supports Israel. The British state’s attempts to make examples of artists like Kneecap and Bob Vylan, and to repress groups like Palestine Action, are attempts to criminalise solidarity with Palestine and scare people away from protesting against its active participation in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

Solidarity with Kneecap, solidarity with Bob Vylan and solidarity with all comrades resisting British state repression!