[davidjay]

That priceless Ming vase would have shattered into a thousand pieces by now.

[Youngian]

Yvette Cooper has made a fool of herself and could now have a mass civil disobedience campaign on her hands that goes way beyond pro Palestine activists. Ian Hislop for eg is daring the police to arrest him.
A bit more listening to the Sir Humphreys at the FO next time. Whose advice is likely to be; going beyond an equidistant honest broker position in the Middle East isn't worth a bucket of spit politically.

[Tubby Isaacs]

She's insisting the security advice to ban was very strong, and it may well have been. Lots of people complaining have no idea what the Terrorism Act actually says about damage to property and are dishonestly conflating Palestine Action and advocating for Palestine. Ian Hislop hates Labour governments, and might in other circumstances be writing about naive leftists who don't know what they're supporting.

And yet, the position doesn't look tenable. I can't see it going away when a bunch of people get fines. Best hope is that some sort of legal challenge forces the Government's hand.

[The Weeping Angel]

That is undoubtedly so, but the proscription of a direct-action protest group as terrorist is, I think I’m right in saying, completely without precedent. I rather think it is this that has put a lot of people’s backs up - hence the demo today.

I also find it slightly baffling. What exactly are Yvette Cooper, and Keir Starmer, trying to prove or achieve ? Causing several million quid’s worth of damage to state assets is a very serious criminal matter- without a doubt, in penalty for which the full force of the law should be brought to bear. But terrorism ? They were not, and are not, trying to kill anybody or terrorise anybody.

If it’s possible for Yvette and Keir to back down from this action with a shred of credibility and dignity, then they should do so ASAP.

100% this. When you have the former base commander of Greenham Common saying this is too much, I think it’s clear it’s too much. It’s absurdly heavy handed, it feeds all manner of theories about donations from Israel-friendly groups to cabinet ministers, and it plays perfectly into the tiresome narrative that Starmer’s Labour are no better than, if not worse, than the Tories. And on this particular issue, there’s depressingly more than a grain of truth to that.

It’s a gift to the right as it shifts the Overton window yet again, it’s a gift to the left and Corbyn’s start-up as it disenfranchises Labour voters, and - above all else - it’s *wrong*. Other protest groups have done far more for far longer with no action remotely like this.

Mostly true, I would say two things: 1. A vast majority of those protesting hadn't heard of Palestine Action before now, and 2. Think they're XR but for Palestine.