The claim by the Metropolitan Police in their statement on 30 October that “all those coming” to the Defend our Juries protest at the US Embassy on 31 October “are essentially meeting to purposefully commit a crime” – regardless of whether they hold a sign – is an outrageous attack on freedom of thought as well as an assault on rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of speech.

Opposing the proscription of Palestine Action is the policy of the trade union movement as a whole, where it forms part of a much wider campaign to defend civil liberties and the right to protest.

That is why we support union members attending DoJ actions with trade union banners in order to witness the mass arrests and make visible our collective opposition to repression and censorship.

Trade unions and other civil society organisations acting as witnesses in such circumstances is also essential to challenge the narrative of the police that protesters holding cardboard signs and sitting quietly in a public space is the cause of the huge drain on public resources that these massive policing operations represent. The police have always had a choice whether to arrest or not and it is their insistence on enforcing a ban which is unworkable and unpopular which is the root of the problem here.

The Metropolitan Police justifies pre-emptive arrests of everyone coming to the DoJ action on the grounds that “the public would rightly expect us to be proactive and not just standby and wait for offences to be committed”.

The presence of trade unionists at DoJ actions is a reminder that the Trades Union Congress, which represents one of the largest organised sections of “the public” through the 5.3 million members in its affiliated unions, remains utterly opposed to proscription and related attacks on the right to protest, following resolutions passed at its annual congress in 2025.

For the Metropolitan Police to claim that the simple act of bearing witness to the state’s abuse of its powers constitutes a crime underlines the authoritarian consequences of proscription, and why it is right to challenge its enforcement.

We also note with alarm the implication that journalists covering the protest could also face arrest simply for “attending” – as has already happened in Leicester on 8 October. We condemn the threats to arrest anyone deemed to be providing “support” to people holding signs.

We urge activists across the trade union movement to continue campaigning against the proscription of Palestine Action and against the expanding use of the Terrorism Act to police dissent.

Protest is not Terrorism, 31 October 2026

• If your union branch would like to co-sign this statement, please email info@protestisnotterrorism.uk
• Find our model motion and resources for trade unionists here