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