Starmer’s ‘terror tactics’ won’t silence Gaza protesters, says filmmaker

Police repression is failing as protesters’ resoluteness sees police morale fall, says documentarian Norman Thomas

Keir Starmer’s attempts to silence support for Palestine using police “terror tactics” are failing, the producer of a hard-hitting film about state censorship has claimed.

Norman Thomas, producer of “Censoring Palestine”, which has its online premiere on May 4, said that he has seen growing evidence that not only are protesters successfully pushing back against police aggression but also signs of mounting police demoralisation.

Thomas said:

Our camera has recorded the police attacking peaceful protests and the protesters pushing back against them. More than once demonstrators have ‘kettled’ police vans after they’ve seized protesters and refused to let them take them their away.

We have also filmed the police backing off and looking demoralised in the face of concerted resistance by the protesters. It’s really extraordinary.

He also claimed that police attempts to silence dissent over Gaza by mounting raids on protesters have been “fantastically counter-productive” and that the intimidatory and repressive police practice of mounting dawn raids on anyone who protests against the genocide in Gaza is also backfiring:

The recent bungled police raid on a peaceful meeting held by the Youth Demand protest group in a Quakers meeting house shows how fantastically counter-productive the police tactics are. Not only did the police demonstrate the disgraceful things they will do to try to silence free speech, but they were also shown up to have totally failed — because the same group held a similar meeting in the same place a few days later.

They arrest people in their homes, hold them for twelve hours or so, release them in the early morning and often put curfews on them, restricting their movements.  It’s a horrifying process — but the police have done it too often. It’s losing its impact.

It’s obvious now that these are simply intimidating tactics rather than genuine attempts to enforce the law. They are simply failing to intimidate most people because they know what’s coming.

Thomas laid the blame for the attempted police repression squarely at the door of Keir Starmer:

Starmer has failed to crush the protests against his support of Israel’s genocide in Palestine using these draconian tactics. But what he might try next is anyone’s guess. But whatever he does I believe the resistance will go on.

Thomas’s film “Censoring Palestine” is an investigation of the way the truth about Gaza genocide has been systematically suppressed by the mainstream media and the UK government. It includes contributions from veteran filmmaker Ken Loach, comedian Alexei Sayle, Stop The War convenor Lindsey German, world famous musician Roger Waters and many others.

The film is the latest  from Platform Films, who made the “Oh Jeremy Corbyn – The Big Lie” documentary that was controversially axed by the Glastonbury Festival in 2023 following an online campaign by pro-Israel bodies.

“Censoring Palestine” will receive its first online screening on the Crispin Flintoff Zoom show on Sunday 4 May at 10.30am. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with commentators including Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos and activist Jackie Walker. Watch a trailer below and book tickets here:

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