LABOUR MP RUMOURED TO DECLARE SUPPORT FOR PALESTINE ACTION

 

In a response to a letter from me, Liverpool Member of Parliament Paula Barker’s office manager wrote, “Paula prefers direct action …”

Paula Barker holds a sign...

Really? Has Paula secretly gone and locked herself to the gates of one of the British sites of Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest arms firm who market their weapons as "battle-tested on Palestinians," to prevent any more weaponry leaving? Has she damaged a fighter jet in the expectation that an emerging barrister will help get her off on grounds of preventing war crimes overseas? Did she walk up to Benjamin Netanyahu and carry out a citizen’s arrest when he was last in Britain? Did she chant "Globalise the Intifada" on the floor of the house?

No. The direct action Paula Barker took (in preference to the ineffective task of signing Early Day Motions) was signing a letter authored by Jeremy Corbyn urging Justice Secretary David Lammy to urgently meet the lawyers of eight remand prisoners who are currently at risk of death from hunger strikes in British prisons. The eight*, being held and treated as terrorists despite at most causing criminal damage to military equipment on behalf of Palestine Action, have been on hunger strike for as many as 46 days (at time of writing), in protest at the draconian treatment they are being subjected to in prison. It is worth restating that they were all arrested prior to the group being proscribed by parliamentary vote.

So, while Jeremy Corbyn writes letters, questions the most senior ministers in Parliament, visits the prisoners and takes to social media to publicise the cause; while Zarah Sultana goes to HMP Bronzefield to protest the refusal of the prison to allow an ambulance to take hunger striker Quesser Zuhrah to hospital, Paula Barker signs a letter.

I am at least grateful that she has shown such bravery by associating herself with Jeremy Corbyn so openly, since that can be construed by her current party leader and the BBC as antisemitic still festering in the Labour Party.

Talking of the state broadcaster, perhaps Paula can use her position to get the matter seriously covered by the corporation and then threaten to initiate legal action against it for (what was it?) malicious, defamatory and biased broadcasting, as typified by the Panorama programme Is Labour Antisemitic? which caused serious reputational damage and indeed the loss of the 2019 General Election. Quite a bit of money can be raised in the process, which will help the party assuage its increasing unpopularity and dwindling membership, and certainly give Ms. Barker’s career prospects a massive boost. Win, win!

This might be the biggest ask, but Paula could finally acknowledge that the proscription of Palestine Action (a peaceful protest movement) was wrong, and join those campaigning for it to be deproscribed, for Elbit Systems to be permanently shut down, and for all those fellow politicians who enabled the genocide to be made to face justice.

If she takes those steps and describes them as direct action, I won't challenge her use of that definition (others might), and I’ll even begin to be grateful that she is my representative in Westminster, the so-called mother of all parliaments.

Tayo Aluko. Parliamentary Constituency of Wavertree, Liverpool

* two ended their strike on 17 December

The Best of British to the Lowest of British. A Liverpool (and Westminster) Story.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to find recently that The Guardian had published the obituary of a dear old friend of mine, John Gibson in late 2003, and that it is still available on its website. “You need to talk to John Gibson” was something I was repeatedly told when I had announced to people in Liverpool that I wanted to research and write something about Paul Robeson. This would have been back in 1996/7. Sure enough, I soon found myself in the Aigburth home of John and his wife Veronica, being treated to lovely food and conversation, listening to Robeson records and all kinds of music from the former Soviet Union, and meeting people from all walks of life, from many countries. It was also at their home that I first met Marika Sherwood - whose passing earlier this year was also carried in The Guardian, and featured on BBC Radio 4’s Last Word. John proudly talked of meeting the great man himself in the 1940s, thanks to their shared involvement in Communism.

John and Veronica had three sons and one daughter. I am still in touch with two of them: Paul (named after Robeson, in fact) and Ralph. The obituary mentions nine grandchildren. One of those in particular would have been eight years old when John died, and I remember her having a bubbly personality. That grandchild is now known to many around the world as Amu Gib.

‘Who is Amu Gib?’ you may ask. You won’t find the answer in the Guardian. Not for now, anyway. If however Amu were to die at the hands of the British state in coming weeks, this liberal establishment publication may finally carry their story. It is really quite disgusting (but no longer shocking, sadly) that Amu’s story is not part of mainstream news reporting right now. Not shocking, because the same newspaper that revealed industrial-scale spying by the American National Security Agency (NSA) on its unsuspecting citizens would metamorphose, over subsequent years, first into a part of the media eco-system that would lead to Julian Assange almost being delivered to certain death at the hands of the American state for revealing how dirty Western and other governments are, and then be part of the political assassination of Jeremy Corbyn. And once he was safely out of the way, the Guardian would go on to participate in the normalisation and acceptance of Israeli propaganda during the genocide in Palestine that is now into its third year.

For information on who Amu Gib is therefore, one will have to go to social media and independent outlets. From there, one will learn what has reached tiny proportions of news seekers around the world: that they are one of the Prisoners for Palestine: The Filton 24 - a band of concerned citizens who under the Palestine Action banner carried out an attack on an Israeli-owned arms factory in Filton, north of Bristol, and four who broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed two aircraft with red paint. They have been held on remand in prison since August 2024 under the terrorism act, without having been charged with terror offences. Amu and seven others of the Prisoners for Palestine have gone on hunger strike in protest at the brutal conditions under which they are being held. Two of Amu’s colleagues have been admitted to hospital, and there is no guarantee that one or more of them will not die as a result of their protest. Perhaps only then will outlets like the BBC and the Guardian finally name these brave souls who represent the absolute best in British humanity.

One of them asked in an interview, “Are you willing to let us die before you stop arming a genocide?” Sadly, with Justice Secretary David Lammy falsely denying any knowledge of the hunger strike, then refusing to meet Members of Parliament wanting to urgently discuss the matter, it seems the answer to that question is Yes. 

For the Guardian and others to allow such cynical, murderous behaviour to continue in the dark is utterly disgraceful, but as the existence of John’s obituary shows, the truth is out there, waiting for people to find it, however long it takes. It includes this statement from Amu: “Maybe I do have one wish: that every year of my life will act as a handful of sand in the gears of this imperialist killing machine. And that we live to see the day it eventually, inevitably, grinds to a halt.”

It is rather frightening that we live in a world in which acting on such a belief can be a death-wish, but we can only hope to be infected by the bravery of Amu and their fellow hunger strikers so that we can defeat these murderers. John would be proud of his grandchild, but I pray that he is not reunited with them before their time.

Solidarity with Amu Gib and the other hunger strikers. Free the Filton 24. Freedom and Justice for Palestine. End the Genocide. Shut Elbit Down.