In Britain’s increasingly authoritarian society, any sort of protest can find itself at odds with the law. You might even go to jail
This piece must be carefully written to avoid my being imprisoned for up to 14 years. That’s a curious sentence to say as a newspaper columnist in Britain in 2025. But since the government voted to proscribe the direct action protest group Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act, any statement seen as expressing support could lead to arrest and prosecution.
You may justifiably respond that Guardian journalists are not above the law. For example, if I penned a column in support of al-Qaida, you might be sympathetic to incarceration: it did, after all, kill nearly 3,000 people on 9/11, as well as perpetrate multiple terrorist atrocities such as the 2004 Madrid train bombings, and the 7 July London bombings two decades ago. Similarly, you may conclude that a polemic in favour of Islamic State should be met with a hefty prison sentence.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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