Mass arrests escalate in UK following proscription of Palestine Action

Martin Smith

The Starmer government’s repression of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza was stepped up this weekend, with police arresting more than 100 people at protests around the UK for expressing support for the direct action protest group Palestine Action.

Palestine Action was proscribed on July 5, making membership of or support for the group a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

People demonstrating against proscription were arrested under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 in London, Cardiff, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow. Police mostly targeted protesters holding signs reading, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

Some of the tens of thousands of protesters assembled on Whitehall, London, July 19, 2025

Sixty-six people were arrested in London, mainly on small protests against the criminalisation of PalAction. Posting an “arrest update” on X the Metropolitan Police said on Saturday afternoon, “55 people were arrested in Parliament Square for displaying placards in support of Palestine Action which is a proscribed group. They were arrested under Sec 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.” Another 4pm posting stated that “a further 10 ten people have been arrested within the main Palestine Coalition march,” including “Eight for supporting a proscribed organisation (Palestine Action)” and “One for breaching Public Order Act conditions.”

The arrests mean that around 300 people have now been arrested under sections of the Terrorism Act since PalAction was proscribed, compared to 248 people arrested on terrorism charges in the UK during the whole of last year.

Saturday saw the 28th national demonstration held in the capital against the Gaza genocide. Around 80,000 people attended the Palestine Coalition march and rally, braving a thunderstorm to do so. Two days before the protest the Met put out a statement designed to cow those planning to attend under the heading, “UPDATE: Met reiterates warning on support for proscribed organisations ahead of Saturday protests”.

It stated “There will be an increased police presence in Westminster on Saturday when a number of protests are due to take place.”

Police seal off Horse Guard's Parade, off Whitehall, during Saturday's protest in London. The building to the right being heavily guarded is the Ministry of Defence

Declaring that Public Order Act conditions would be in place it continued, “We are also expecting further protest activity in support of Palestine Action which is a group now proscribed under the Terrorism Act. Similar protests have taken place in Parliament Square for the past two weekends, with 70 arrests made.”

On the day, most police were deployed against the PalAction solidarity protest. The BBC reported of the London arrests that “many… appeared to be over the age of 60. One woman claimed to be in her 80s and was walking with a stick. Some were led away while others had to be carried.”

In Bristol, Avon and Somerset Police arrested 17 people under the Terrorism Act after a demonstration on College Green. In Manchester 16 were arrested. In Truro, Cornwall, eight were arrested, including an 81 year old retired magistrate, Deborah Hinton.

During the London demonstration, the Met deployed signage to further intimidate reading in block capitals, “Threatening or abusive chants may lead to arrest” and “It is an offence to support a proscribed organisation”.

At least 56 Palestine Action members are presently being tried for offences related to their peaceful protests at arms factories and military installations, such as criminal damage and trespass. At least 13 members have been arrested since June 20. In many of their cases, the prosecution has already claimed a “terrorist connection”.

On Sunday, prominent Liverpool left-wing activist Audrey White was one of four people arrested under the Terrorism Act for carrying signs supporting Palestine Action. White rose to national prominence in 2022 when she confronted Starmer in a restaurant and denounced his right-wing policies. The 76 year-old head of the Mersey Pensioners Association was subjected to a brutal arrest by a least four police officers as they dragged her away—to chants of “shame on you!”—before they bundled her into a waiting police van.

Independent news web site Skwawkbox reported, “White’s brother Mark Holt, who was on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza in 2008 and drove across Europe and into Gaza with Medical Aid, a young woman, and a retired housing adviser are believed to be the others arrested.”

On Monday, three women appeared in court after being arrested on July 15 after a van was driven into the fence of a factory owned by arms manufacturer, Leonardo in Edinburgh. After being charged under section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000 on Sunday, they appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court the next day. Section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it an offence for a person to possess an article in circumstances where there’s a reasonable suspicion that the possession is connected to the commission, preparation, or instigation of an act of terrorism. A conviction under section 57 can include imprisonment for up to 15 years, a fine, or both.

The Starmer government’s targeting of prominent political activists has seen a slew of journalists detained and arrested under terrorism charges. On July 16, one of those targeted, Kit Klarenberg, reported, “Appalled but depressingly unsurprised to learn my friend @SweeneySteve [Steve Sweeney, Beirut-based war correspondent who is the head of RT’s Lebanon bureau] got detained, interrogated and his digital devices seized by British terror gestapo thugs coming home.”

RT reported, “In a statement posted Wednesday on her Telegram channel, [RT  editor-in-chief Margarita] Simonyan said Sweeney was apprehended on arrival in Britain and interrogated at length about his work for RT. According to Simonyan, officers told Sweeney he was ‘suspected of terrorist activities,’ confiscated his phones and laptop, and questioned him about editorial practices at the network.” Simonyan said that “police asked Sweeney whether he had any links to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group and took photos of his tattoos. She added that after the interrogation, Sweeney was released and ‘plans to continue working for RT’”.

On Sunday, the Guardian reported, “Greater Manchester Friends for Palestine (GMFP) and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which both organise peaceful protests and vigils, have had access to their funds cut off indefinitely by Virgin Money and Unity Trust bank respectively. The Guardian understands a local PSC branch in England has also had its bank account frozen but was unable to confirm it directly.”

This follows the same attack on prominent anti-Zionist Tony Greenstein, who was also charged last year under the Terrorism Act 2000. Skwawkbox reported July 12, “Greenstein first had his account with HSBC subsidiary First Direct, with whom he has banked for more than thirty years, frozen in March without explanation, then un-frozen a couple of weeks later, equally without explanation. On Thursday, he then received an ‘urgent’ email telling him to sign in to his online banking and found a message telling him that – supposedly because of a ‘periodic review’, the bank had decided it would no longer offer him banking facilities”.

While police forces were carrying out mass arrests, the Labour government was hosting the head of the Israeli air force, Major General Tomer Bar—who has overseen the destruction of Gaza from the air with weapons supplied by NATO powers, including Britain, which also provides critical reconnaissance assistance.

Bar’s main reason to be in Britain was to attend a conference hosted by the Royal Air Force, where he is to discuss with his counterparts among the major imperialist powers. Middle East Eye reported, “According to Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Bar will have a series of meetings with air force commanders from around the world.”

New Caledonia remains part of France under “historic” agreement

John Braddock

New Caledonia’s pro-and-anti-independence parties have committed to a so-called “historic” deal regarding the future political status of the French Pacific territory, which is now set to become a “state” within the French Constitution.

President Emmanuel Macron, centre, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, left, and Minister for Overseas Territories Manuel Valls attend a meeting with New Caledonia's elected officials and state representatives at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, July 12, 2025. [AP Photo/Tom Nicholson]

The 13-page agreement, officially entitled “Agreement Project of the Future of New Caledonia,” was signed on July 12 after 10 days of negotiations in Bougival on the outskirts of Paris. The talks, convened by French President Emmanuel Macron, were aimed at creating a new document to replace the 1998 “power sharing” Nouméa Accord.

The delegations included all New Caledonia’s political factions; four anti-independence groups (the Loyalists; Rassemblement-Les Républicains; Eveil océanien and Calédonie ensemble), and two pro-independence groups: UC-FLNKS (Union Calédonienne with the main Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front coalition), and Union Nationale pour l’Independance (UNI), which includes the Parti de Libération Kanak (Palika) and Union Progréssiste en Mélanésie (UPM).

The deal creates a “State of New Caledonia” within France, and a New Caledonian nationality. Macron declared it a “bet on trust” leading to a “peaceful relationship with France.” It commits all the signatories, who must now sell it to their own deeply suspicious political bases.

A joint sitting of the French National Assembly and French Senate will be held this year to codify the Bougival Accord into the Constitution. It will then be taken to a referendum in New Caledonia in early 2026, followed by ratification in the French National Assembly.

The Bougival gathering was dubbed the “summit of last chance” after a series of talks between February and May this year, chaired by French Overseas Territories Minister Manuel Valls, failed to reach agreement. The last meeting in Nouméa collapsed after Valls tabled a proposal that contained a form of “sovereignty with France,” including transfer of key powers—defence, law and order, currency, foreign affairs, justice—from Paris to New Caledonia and dual Kanaky-France citizenship.

The negotiations originally were called in the wake of last year’s seven-month uprising by indigenous Kanak youth against French colonial rule. There was widespread rioting and 14 people killed, mostly by French gendarmes, with damage estimated at €2.2 billion. Fueled by social inequality, unemployment and economic desperation, the rebellion brought alienated youth into conflict, not only with colonial oppression, but with the territory’s political establishment, including the official Kanak pro-independence parties.

The pro-independence movement split in December, with the majority FLNKS demanding full sovereignty and the “moderate” factions seeking a shared arrangement with Paris. The pro-France “Loyalist” parties flatly opposed any settlement which failed to take into account the three referendums between 2018 and 2021, including in the controversial final vote boycotted by pro-independence Kanaks, that had rejected independence.

France’s ruling elite was never going to relinquish its grip on its strategically important colonial possession. From the beginning Macron made it clear that “Republican order” would be imposed in the most brutal fashion. Over 7,000 military and police personnel were dispatched to put down the “insurrection” and leading Kanak independence activists sent to prisons in France. Macron pressured the pro-independence parties to bring the young rioters to heel—a task they obediently carried out.

Under the deal, calls at the heart of the uprising for full and sovereign political independence have been betrayed. The agreement does not grant France’s 172 years-old colony independence, either immediately or in the future.

The agreement is broader than proposals previously tabled by Valls. The new “state of Caledonia” will be established through a “basic law” enshrined in France’s constitution. It can be recognised by other nations and establish a “Caledonian nationality,” while letting residents also have French nationality. It could also eventually allow New Caledonians to change the territory’s name and flag.

The French State retains control of policing, courts, currency and defence, but with new structures to enlist a wider layer of the New Caledonian political establishment in an extended “partnership.” The Southern Province, which includes Nouméa and is a centre of anti-independence forces, will receive new fiscal and administrative powers, plus extra seats in an expanded 56-member Congress.

Authority over foreign affairs will be transferred to the New Caledonia government. The colony already has enhanced its “regional integration” since gaining full membership of the Pacific Islands Forum in 2016. However, it must conduct diplomatic relations “in accordance with the international commitments and the interests of France,” and uphold Paris’s major strategic interests, which includes France’s military base on the main island and its commitment to the US-led buildup to war against China.

While France retains control of the courts and police, the deal provides for the creation of provincial and “community” policing. This local police “face” is to offset the deployment of the unpopular French gendarmes which were responsible for brutal and deadly attacks on Kanak protestors and rioters.

All residents will also be allowed to vote after living 10 years in the territory. Currently, only people born in the colony or residing there before 1998 can vote. The proposed change, which strengthens the influence of recently arrived migrants from France and diminishes the Kanak proportion of the voting population, was one of the primary issues that ignited the territory’s civil unrest. Previously deferred provincial elections, due to be held later this year under the old restrictive rules, will be postponed until mid-2026.

The deal also calls for an economic and financial “recovery pact” that would include support for the territory’s vital nickel processing capabilities which are currently under extreme pressure from suppliers in Indonesia and China. There are likely to be limits on the destination of the nickel, which has strategic and military uses and which France wants to remain within the European Union as a designated “strategic mineral.”

Both sides have swiftly moved to promote the deal which has already met with a backlash. In a joint release, the two main pro-France parties, Les Loyalistes and Rassemblement-LR, said the agreement was “historic” and “perennial,” offering New Caledonia “a future of peace, stability and prosperity” while at the same time considering France’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

Anti-independence politician Nicolas Metzdorf, however, called it a compromise born of “demanding dialogue” and described the Caledonian nationality as a “real concession.” Philippe Blaise, vice-president of Southern Province administration, said the agreement “crossed a red line” by recognising a “Caledonian state” and a “distinct nationality,” which he said was incompatible with French unity.

For the pro-independence parties Emmanuel Tjibaou, New Caledonia’s member of the French National Assembly, said the accord would help “us get out of the spiral of violence.” He described a “difficult path” ahead but one that would allow Kanaks and other Caledonians to “move forward together” while “mending divisions.”

In an official statement the FLNKS claimed that the agreement included “major advances towards the objective of bringing together, over time, all the elements of sovereignty. At a difficult time for our country, marked by a deep political, economic and social crisis, we, the group mandated by FLNKS have assumed responsibility.”

Many pro-independence activists have taken to social media to condemn the deal. Local journalist Brigitte Whaap told Radio NZ that while some of the public were “relieved” there had been progress and an agreement was proposed, many are “feeling betrayed, really upset about this situation.”

Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, a leader of the Coordination Cell for Field Actions (CCAT), currently incarcerated in France, said: “This text was signed without us. It does not bind us.” CCAT has been declared by the authorities as the main organising group behind the protests with a dozen of its leaders still facing serious criminal charges.

Joel Kasarerhou, president of civil society group Construire Autrement (Build Differently), called the agreement “stillborn” and “lacking ambition and vision.” Kasarerhou said the youth at the heart of the May 2024 uprising had been “forgotten or barely mentioned,” and he feared another “May 13”—the date the riots began.

What the deal has not addressed, let alone resolved, is the deep economic and social crisis hitting the colony, and in particular the impoverished working class and youth. Whatever the official outcome of the high-level political maneuvering now under way, the issues behind the unrest—ingrained poverty, social inequality, unemployment and social desperation—remain.

Crypto market capitalisation hits $4 trillion

Nick Beams

After the price of Bitcoin passed $120,000 last week, the crypto market reached a new milestone. With legislation going through the US Congress opening new avenues for cryptocurrencies and trading, the market capitalization of crypto reached $4 trillion as investors prepare to pour billions of dollars into the market.

In less than three years, the market value of crypto has expanded five-fold. In December 2022, in the wake of the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX, the price of Bitcoin fell to $16,000 and the market capitalization was $800 billion.

An advertisement of Bitcoin, one of the cryptocurrencies, is displayed on a building in Hong Kong, on Nov. 18, 2021. [AP Photo/Kin Cheung]

Since then, crypto has been on a steady rise, accelerating rapidly after the coming to power of Trump and his pledge to the crypto speculators, of which he is one, raking in billions of dollars, to make the US the crypto capital of the world.

Three pieces of legislation have been presented. The so-called GENIUS Act, which has passed both the House and the Senate, facilitates the establishment of stablecoins that aid the entry of major finance houses, as well as non-financial corporations, into the crypto world.

The Clarity Act, which has passed the House and now awaits approval in the Senate, is possibly even more significant because it removes regulation of the crypto market from the Securities and Exchange Commission and gives it to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is regarded as being more “crypto friendly.”

In comments to the New York Times, Kara Calvert, a top official at the major crypto exchange Coinbase, said it “has been absolutely the most important thing we have been pushing for.”

The third piece of legislation is the ban on the Federal Reserve creating a digital currency, regarded as less significant because the Fed has not announced any plan to do so.

The latest legislation has been characterized by crypto advocates as “one of the most significant moves” towards the mainstream adoption of crypto. The GENIUS Act opens the way for Wall Street banks, money managers and major corporations to create their own stablecoins as a pathway for entry into the crypto world.

Stablecoins are different from the thousands of coins that have been created, of which Bitcoin is the most prominent.

They are touted as providing stability because they are supposedly backed one-for-one by underlying assets, chiefly US dollars or Treasury bonds. The heads of Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase have said they intend to create their own stablecoins, and other non-financial firms, such as Walmart and Amazon, are expected to follow.

The expanded development of stablecoins, which the latest legislation facilitates, means that the regular financial system, including the US Treasury market, is more intimately connected to the Ponzi scheme that constitutes the crypto market. None of the crypto coins, including Bitcoin, has any intrinsic value—there is no underlying real asset. Its market value only rises insofar as more money flows in, and this is the aim of the new legislation.

By forming what has been described as the “connective tissue” between the banking and financial system and the Ponzi crypto market, stablecoins add a new source of financial instability, despite their supposed one-for-one backing with the dollar. Commercial paper has been similarly supported but played a part in the 2008 crisis, and there are fears stablecoins could be a source of instability if they “break the buck.”

As Financial Times (FT) columnist Katie Martin noted in an article published in June: “Up to now, what happened in crypto stayed in crypto.”

But the situation has changed, and “we are now rapidly reaching the point where the crypto ecosystem poses risks to mainstream markets.”

If for any reason a stablecoin were forced to sell its assets to meet redemptions or because it had to fold, this would have ramifications for the whole financial system, particularly the short-term US Treasury market. It is now estimated that stablecoin operators hold more short-term US debt securities than big foreign investors, such as China.

This is not a matter of conjecture. In May 2022, the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin, promoted by fears about the quality of its backing, resulted in $40 billion in market value being wiped out.

It did not have great flow-on effects at that time. But the crypto market has expanded by several orders of magnitude since then and has become much more connected to the broader financial system.

No one really knows the extent of that connection because of the lack of data. But a survey conducted by EY Parthenon concluded that 73 percent of institutional investors had exposure to crypto, and that 85 percent of these had increased their holdings in 2024.

The Bank for International Settlements, the umbrella organization for the world’s central banks, commented extensively on the issue of stablecoins and the crypto markets in its annual report issued at the end of last month, pointing to potential sources of instability.

One of the major issues it raised was what it referred to as the “singleness of money” in a world where financial firms and corporations are issuing their own stablecoins. In the present system, money issued by central banks is “accepted by all without hesitation,” the BIS said.

But questions are raised where there are multiple stablecoins. The “singleness of money” cannot be guaranteed, the BIS noted, because depending on how the strength of its asset backing is assessed, one stablecoin may be traded at a discount or a premium for another.

On the issue of crypto coins, it said that despite the claims of their proponents that they redefine money “they do not resemble a stable monetary instrument, but rather a speculative asset.”

Stablecoins have been designed as a “gateway to the crypto ecosystem” and if they continue to grow “they could pose financial stability risks, including the tail risk of fire sales of safe assets.”

The proponents of the crypto system endlessly claim that it represents a “democratisation” of finance and provides the opportunity for ordinary people to partake of the benefits to be derived from the world of finance, ignoring the fact that, according to the FBI, Americans lost $9 billion to crypto fraud last year, a 66 percent increase from the year before.

As Hilary J. Allen a professor of law at American University Washington College of Law stated in a submission to the House Committee on Financial Services on June 24: “When roughly half of all Americans (some surveys say more) are living paycheck-to-paycheck, the problem is not lack of investment opportunities but a lack of money to invest in the first place.”

Crypto assets were “Ponzi-like” because their value was not based on real-world assets but depended “entirely on whether another buyer can be found for them.”

She said that if tokenised assets (of which stablecoins are one) take off then “it is undeniable that it will result in the creation of more financial assets that can be traded speculatively, and that can serve as collateral for leveraged transactions. … The bigger the supply of available financial assets, the greater the opportunities for asset bubbles to grow, and then for assets to be dumped during fire sales.”

But the creation of such bubbles is the aim of the crypto legislation, promoted by the Trump administration but which is being waved through Congress by the Democrats. The strongest criticism, if it can be called that, came from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

In her statement to a Senate committee, she expressed concern that “what my Republican colleagues are aiming for is another industry handout that gives the crypto lobby exactly its wish list” as she declared she was “looking forward to working with my colleagues to get this done—the right way.”

There is no right way—the bringing of crypto into the financial mainstream emanates from the rot and decay at the heart of the US capitalist system—the accumulation of wealth by ever more parasitic and criminal means.

Warren, who has described herself as “capitalist to the bone,” was carrying out her assigned function within this system by seeking to create a smokescreen for its operations with the claim that it can be somehow regulated.

But as she knows full well there is no prospect of this. As she herself explained, the Clarity Act will allow companies to tokenise their assets to evade regulations.

“Under the House bill, a publicly traded company like Meta or Tesla could simply decide to put its stock on the blockchain and POOF! It would escape all SEC regulation.”

Meanwhile Trump is looking for more ways to meet the insatiable demands of finance, while feathering his own nest.

According to a report in the FT last week, Trump is preparing to open the US $9 trillion retirement system to crypto investments. It said that Trump was looking to issuing an executive order “that would open up 401k plans to alternative investments beyond traditional stocks and bonds.”

These investments would “run a broad spectrum of asset classes, from digital assets to metal and funds focused on corporate takeovers, private loans and infrastructure deals,” according to three people the newspaper said had been briefed on the plan.

The White House said nothing had yet been decided and no decision was official unless it came from Trump himself.

Whether this plan or another is adopted, the essential logic is clear.

The crypto market is a Ponzi scheme which requires the injection of ever greater amounts of money to push market value ever higher, enabling those at the apex of the financial system to expropriate ever greater amounts of wealth before the house of cards collapses with the consequences borne by the mass of the population—on a far greater a scale even than the crisis of 2008.

Just as the growing Epstein scandal is exposing the lifestyles and mores of the ultra wealthy, revealing the ruling classes to be a corrupt cancer on the body politic which must be removed, so their promotion of crypto is revealing the necessity to end the profit system and its ever steeper descent into parasitism, fraud and criminality, which is their economic foundation.