Enough is Enough

TetleysTLDR: The summary 

On 9 August, UK police arrested a blind man in a wheelchair under terrorism laws during protests against the Genocide in Gaza.  This man was clearly no credible threat.  This is what human rights groups call political repression.  Amnesty, the UN, and legal campaigners condemn the arrests as an abuse of process, part of a broader pattern of using counter-terror laws to silence dissent.  Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership has taken over £300,000 from pro-Israel donors, raising questions about foreign influence on UK policy.  The UK government is accused of complicity in Israeli war crimes via military support, diplomatic cover, and domestic crackdowns on critics.  Prevent and recent protest laws undermine free speech and assembly, breaching the Human Rights Act and ECHR protections. An ICC complaint is proposed, alleging crimes against humanity and war crimes complicity, with calls for urgent investigation.

TetleysTLDR: The article 

What, and I mean this sincerely, the actual fuck!

On 9 August, the British state showed the world exactly what it has become. In broad daylight, under the flimsiest pretext of ‘counter-terrorism’, police arrested a blind man sitting in a wheelchair.  No bomb, no weapon, no credible plot, just a citizen exercising his basic rights.  This was not law enforcement.  It was a political execution.  And it did not happen in secret.  It happened in the glare of the cameras, in a so-called democracy that has abandoned its own values.

It is not only activists who have noticed.  Amnesty International condemned the mass arrests, more than 500 as ‘deeply concerning’ and warned of the chilling effect on peaceful dissent.  The UN’s human rights chief echoed the concern, calling out Britain’s suppression of legitimate political expression.  Defend Our Juries, a civil disobedience campaign rooted in the principles of open justice, framed the arrests as a clear abuse of process.  Groups like Scotland Against Criminalising Communities and Cage have long warned of this creeping authoritarianism: the normalisation of terrorism laws to silence political opposition, the casual way in which political policing becomes part of the landscape.  When even the most cautious corners of civil society are radicalised by outrage, the government has lost whatever moral high ground it claimed to stand on.

And yet Keir Starmer appears oblivious to the scale of public fury.  This isn’t the quiet grumbling of the disaffected, it’s a white-hot anger spreading through communities who never thought they’d be on the sharp end of political repression.  Starmer behaves as if the outrage will fade, that a few weeks of spin and selective reporting will bury the story.  But the arrests of 9 August have been seared into the public memory.  We are paying attention, because this week it’s Palestine, and next week, it could be any one of us.  Once you allow the state to criminalise protest on behalf of one foreign government, you’ve opened the door for it to do so for any cause it dislikes.

And that foreign government, Israel, should no longer be treated as a trusted ally.  It is a pariah state.  Allies do not demand that our police drag disabled protesters from wheelchairs. Allies do not commit war crimes and expect us to cover for them.  And yet Britain has been doing Israel’s dirty work for years.  The RAF has flown missions and facilitated logistics that directly support Israel’s military operations, while ministers gaslight the public about ‘training exercises’ and ‘defensive contracts’.  The truth is, our taxes and our military infrastructure are complicit in occupation and slaughter.  No amount of PR spin can scrub the blood from the ledger and no amount of bullshit conflating criticism of this with antisemitism will wash anymore. 

And then there’s the donations from the Israel lobby.  Let’s be brutally clear: the Labour front bench is not getting showered with this kind of cash from them for their good looks or their joyous personalities. The scale is staggering, more than £300,000 funnelled to Starmer’s top team this year alone, and that’s just the declared donations. Yvette Cooper alone has pocketed £215,000 from pro-Israel sources.  Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Jonathan Reynolds: the list goes on, all with their paws out.  And these aren’t random acts of generosity.   We have to ask, without flinching: why is a foreign state, one currently accused of war crimes in Gaza, bunging our senior politicians hundreds of thousands of pounds?  Nobody parts with that kind of money out of affection.  This is political investment, and the dividends are being paid in silence, complicity, and policy that serves Tel Aviv before it serves the British public.

The public should be demanding that their politicians serve the interests of the people who put them there, not some foreign power.  This is what abuse of sovereignty really looks like. We should also be demanding that the Israel lobby in all its forms is disbanded.  Criminal investigations instigated and all money that has been received by politicians be handed over to charities working for the relief of children in Gaza.  It is the least we can expect if we are to claim we are a civilised society.

And this brings us nicely to Prevent:  the government’s counter-radicalisation programme. Amnesty International has called it ‘the thought police’.  Liberty has described it as a tool of mass surveillance aimed at people who have committed no crime.  The law itself is dangerously vague, allowing the state to brand ordinary political views as ‘extremist’ without judicial oversight.  Academic studies have found Prevent fosters mistrust and fear, particularly in Muslim communities, while doing little to actually reduce violence.  If the government intentionally set out to radicalise normal people, it could not be doing a better job.  Prevent doesn’t defuse extremism, it manufactures it, by criminalising empathy and treating dissent as danger.  

Do you want to know what does radicalise people.  Ordinary law-abiding people:  it’s the fucking police arresting disabled blind people in wheelchairs under counter-terrorism laws.  This is beyond shameful.  None of you cunts are fit for public office.

From a civil liberties perspective, this is a car crash in slow motion. The Human Rights Act 1998 enshrines our right to freedom of expression (Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights) and freedom of assembly (Article 11). Both rights have been shredded in practice by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the Public Order Act 2023, and now the wilful misuse of the Terrorism Act 2000.  These laws are supposed to be proportionate and necessary in a democratic society.  Using them to detain a blind man in a wheelchair for political protest fails both tests, it is neither proportionate nor necessary, and it is incompatible with the very human rights standards Britain claims to champion abroad.  And this time the police cannot defend their action by saying they were only obeying orders. 

The 9 August arrests were not an aberration. They were the logical outcome of years of political cowardice, opportunism, and corruption. And until those responsible are held to account, in Parliament, in the courts, and, if necessary, in The Hague, Britain will keep sliding into a place where democracy is no longer defended, but feared by those in power.

The truth is, the Government is on the backfoot.  It wants these demonstrations to turn nasty. It can manage violence: riot shields, batons, water cannons, kettling, that’s its comfort zone.  What it cannot manage is passive resistance.  Every unjust arrest, every pensioner dragged off on trumped-up terror charges, every scrap of evidence that slips out showing the reality of what the Government and the police are doing brings a hundred more into the resistance.  Our Labour Government needs to understand its majority counts for nothing if it has binned democracy.   Us British are a stubborn lot and one thing the British dig their heels in about is injustice.  Gaza could very well be this country’s Euromaidan, because here, just like there, the state and the police should govern by consent and that consent is now a hair’s breadth from being withdrawn from our out-of-control government that’s in the pocket of another state. They can’t put us all in prison, and they know it. That’s why they fear the truth getting out more than they fear the crowds in the streets.

The whole world is watching and our Government is seriously on the wrong side of history.  

Appendix: International Law & ICC Charge Sheet 

Relevant International Humanitarian Law:

• Geneva Convention IV (1949), Articles 27 & 32 — Prohibits persecution, coercion, and collective punishment of civilians.
• Additional Protocol I, Articles 51 & 52 — Prohibits attacks against civilians and civilian objects; protects those not actively participating in hostilities.
• Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), Article 7(1)(h) — Persecution against any identifiable group on political or national grounds is a crime against humanity.
• Rome Statute, Article 8(2)(b)(i) & (ii) — Directing attacks against civilians or civilian infrastructure constitutes a war crime.
• Customary International Law, Rule 149 (ICRC) — States are responsible for violations of international humanitarian law by their agents and may be held accountable in international tribunals.

UK Domestic Law potentially breached  

• Terrorism Act 2000, Section 1 — Definition of terrorism requires the use or threat of action designed to influence the government for the purpose of advancing a political cause. Arresting peaceful protesters under this provision for political convenience is an abuse of the statute.
• Human Rights Act 1998, Sections 6 & 7 — Public authorities must act compatibly with the ECHR. Misuse of terrorism legislation to suppress lawful expression breaches Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of assembly).
• Bribery Act 2010, Section 6 — Criminalises bribery of foreign public officials and could apply by analogy where political donations from foreign-linked entities influence UK policy to the detriment of the national interest.
• Public Order Act 2023 — Though claimed to regulate protests, its use in conjunction with counter-terrorism laws to stifle dissent risks breaching proportionality requirements under ECHR jurisprudence.
  

 Grounds for ICC Referral: 

• The UK Government, through its military, political, and policing actions, is complicit in Israeli war crimes by providing material support, logistical aid, and diplomatic shielding.
• The targeting of domestic protesters — especially disabled individuals — for political purposes constitutes persecution as defined under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.

The coordinated financial influence of pro-Israel lobby groups on the ruling political class establishes motive and benefit, creating a direct link between foreign policy alignment and domestic repression.

Preliminary Communication to the International Criminal Court

ICC Weblink

To:

• Office of the Prosecutor
• International Criminal Court
• Oude Waalsdorperweg 10
• 2597 AK The Hague
• The Netherlands

Submitted by: [Name / Organisation]

Date: [Insert date]

I. Summary of Allegations

This communication concerns acts by the United Kingdom Government and senior members of the Labour Party leadership, in collusion with the State of Israel and pro-Israel lobbying organisations, that amount to:

1. Complicity in war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute;

2. Persecution as a crime against humanity under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute;

3. Systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I;

4. Domestic repression of political dissent in violation of the Human Rights Act 1998 and ECHR Articles 10 & 11.

II. Factual Background

On 9 August 2025, UK police, under the direction of the Home Office, arrested a disabled, blind man in a wheelchair on alleged terrorism charges during protests against the proscription of Palestine Action. These charges were brought under the Terrorism Act 2000 in circumstances that indicate political motivation rather than legitimate security concerns.

The arrests occurred in the context of UK political, military, and diplomatic support for Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza, which have been widely condemned as involving deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. This support includes:

- RAF logistical operations and intelligence-sharing with Israeli forces;

- Diplomatic protection of Israel in international forums;

- Suppression of domestic protests critical of Israel’s actions.

The Labour Party front bench has received over £300,000 from pro-Israel lobbying organisations and individuals, with Yvette Cooper alone receiving £215,000. This raises serious concerns about the influence of foreign-linked funds on UK foreign policy and policing priorities.

III. Legal Basis

International Humanitarian Law:

- Geneva Convention IV, Articles 27 & 32: prohibits persecution and coercion of civilians.

- Additional Protocol I, Articles 51 & 52: prohibits attacks on civilians and civilian objects.

- Rome Statute, Article 7(1)(h): persecution as a crime against humanity.

- Rome Statute, Article 8(2)(b): directing attacks against civilians as a war crime.

UK Domestic Law:

- Human Rights Act 1998, Articles 10 & 11 (ECHR): breaches of freedom of expression and assembly.

- Terrorism Act 2000, Section 1: misuse of terrorism provisions for political suppression.

- Bribery Act 2010, Section 6: potential relevance regarding foreign-linked political donations.

IV. Jurisdiction and Admissibility

The ICC has jurisdiction under Article 12(2)(a) of the Rome Statute, as the UK is a State Party and the alleged crimes occurred on its territory and/or involved its nationals. The gravity of the alleged offences, the scale of the repression, and the context of ongoing armed conflict in Gaza make this matter admissible under Article 17.

V. Request

We respectfully request that the Office of the Prosecutor:

1. Open a preliminary examination into the UK Government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes;

2. Investigate the misuse of domestic counter-terrorism legislation to suppress political dissent;

3. Consider the role of political donations from pro-Israel sources in shaping UK foreign and domestic policy to the detriment of protected rights and in service of an alleged criminal enterprise.

VI. Evidence Available

- Video footage and eyewitness testimony from the 9 August 2025 arrests;

- Parliamentary records of political donations to senior Labour MPs;

- Public records of RAF operations linked to Israel;

- Reports from Amnesty International, the UN, and NGOs documenting the crackdown on dissent;

- Legal analyses of UK legislation in conflict with ECHR protections.

VII. Conclusion

The conduct described herein demonstrates a coordinated pattern of domestic repression, foreign policy alignment with an accused war criminal state, and abuse of anti-terrorism legislation. The facts, in context, amount to crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC and merit urgent investigation.

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