Kmflett's Blog

London Socialist Historians Group

1^st April 2026

Contact LSHG Convenor Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

Historians say the right to protest on Palestine is increasingly threatened after Ben Jamal & Chirs Nineham verdicts.

The London Socialist Historians Group, the long established group of research historians, has said there are serious concerns about the democratic right to protest after Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition and Ben Jamal of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign were found guilty of public order offences by a judge at Westminster Magistrates Court on April 1^st. The verdict will be appealed.

The charges arose from a Palestine solidarity march on January 18^th 2025 where police tried to restrict access to Trafalgar Square and place other highly questionable restrictions on the march. The march was entirely peaceful

There remains an urgent need to protect the right to protest from an ever more authoritarian Government. As the Metropolitan Police have reminded us there is no actual right to march. The ability to do so can only be protected in practice.

The lobby to ban marches remain active and it is notable that Lord Walney again supported a ban on the Al Quds march in London several weeks ago. He unveiled a long delayed report on protest commissioned by the previous Tory Government at the House of Commons in 2024 which was chaired by Lord Mandelson.

Walney (Times 12^th March) followed this by a call for a change to the law to allow for a ban even on static protests, gatherings and meetings.

It is an echo of the Six Acts passed after the Peterloo Massacre in August 1819 and its motivation is likely to be similar. The Government could not understand what had led 60,000 people to gather in central Manchester to demand the vote and did not know how to react. On the day it responded with violence and 18 people were killed and many more injured. With the Six Acts it responded by significantly curtailing or banning the right to meet and protest.

The same is true with the protests for Palestine that have developed after October 2023. The Government cannot understand why such large numbers continue to support them and struggles to respond. Marches have been subject to restrictions, several organisers are currently on trial after police attacked one march in Trafalgar Square and Palestine Action remains banned pending a Government appeal.

The historians say there is a long history of fighting for and defending the right to protest

After Peterloo in Manchester on 16th August 1819 where a demonstration for the vote was broken up by soldiers with many protesters left dead and injured Governments have tended to the view that allowing democratic protest is better than provoking confrontation. However that has never been a settled view and from time to time demonstrations have been banned.

On 6th May 1867 a mass protest for the vote in Hyde Park was banned and the Government called in troops. However the demonstration was so large that they were overwhelmed. The Home Secretary Walpole resigned and a Second Reform Act extending the Suffrage was passed.

Socialist Historians Convenor Dr Keith Flett noted, the right to protest requires continued vigilance and exercise against authoritarian Governments whether Tory or Labour. The Six Acts which were far more draconian than even a Farage Government could dream up were eventually repealed in full, as democratic protests found ways to make their impact.