The shift in Glasgow and how we fight back

The most recent arms factory blockade in Glasgow saw Police Scotland act differently from before. rs21 Glasgow comrades report from the day and consider what’s changed, what’s to come, and how to prepare.

Early in the morning on Nakba Day, which marked 76 years since the Zionist state’s murderous eviction of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, activists set up a blockade at Thales, Glasgow. The blockade aimed to prevent and protest the manufacture of the Watchkeeper WK450 Drone which has been used by the Israeli military as part of its operations against Palestinians for over a decade now, in a continuation of the violence of the Nakba. At the start of the day, like previous factory blockades in Scotland, the atmosphere was calm and positive. We chanted and sang, around 20 police were present, and there was little if any hostility from the Thales workers. Many of the workers arriving before 8am stayed around for a while, but then nearly all these workers were sent home before 9.  Like previous blockades at BAE in Glasgow and Leonardo in Edinburgh, at this point the police were not actively engaging with the activists.

At some point between 9am and 10am, after most of the Thales workers had left, the police requested for the three security guards coming off the night shift to be replaced with three new security guards. This request was debated by the picket, with opinion, it seemed, tending towards allowing the three security guards in, though a number disagreed with this. However, at this point a commander (we were later told this was someone brought up from England specifically trained to respond to actions like this) had arrived, along with more police officers, and we were told that our liaisons had received notice that the decision had been made too slowly, and that the action was ‘no longer a peaceful protest’ and would be policed accordingly. A Special Intelligence Officer went along the line a number of times, scanning and filming participants’ faces. This had never happened at the prior blockades since October.

At this point the police got into formation and forced their way in through one of the workers’ entrances. They used force freely to secure the entrance. Police then shoved through the other side, fighting violently with blockaders. Some police seemed to be relishing the opportunity; others seemed overwhelmed and unsure. We might speculate they have had limited practice in these kinds of situations. A police officer picked off one person and took them into the van, making the first arrest. Protestors chased the van and some lay underneath the wheels. As protestors locked arms around the van, police made more arrests and formed a route to reverse the vans out onto the street. At the same time, other police were letting around twenty workers into the factory, who appeared to be management. On top of direct physical aggression toward the protestors, the police were confiscating phones if they fell on the ground. It’s clear that intelligence-gathering was part of their brief for the day. The activists were blindsided and although they were masked up, many had brought phones, wallets, and other identifying belongings.

After they let the Thales management into the premises, police got into formation to block off the area we had been occupying, preventing us from accessing our bags and supplies. Someone who went to retrieve their bag was arrested. Blockaders were told to go down the street, and that police liaisons would bring their items. Police meanwhile went through every bag that was left, filming themselves and the contents of the bags. The items were then not brought down the street, but to Govan Police Station to be collected later.

This is a big step change for Police Scotland’s relation not just to the Palestine solidarity movement, but to activism and protests generally. Though Police Scotland always mete out violence against the poor and racialised in Scotland and against football fans, it is unusual that they directed this at a crowd of protestors. This is partly because Police Scotland famously self-represent as a benign liberal entity, who demonstrate a ‘soft touch’ on protests, and who contrast themselves to more spectacularly violent police forces like in England and the US. While we know this mask was never the truth, and liberal policing is still state brutality as it depends upon threat of violent force, we need to understand the actual use of force as a potential shift in tactics. The police do not act autonomously on whims, but receive their orders from higher powers of capital. What happened at Thales demonstrates a different set of orders which marks a potential harbinger of more violent repression to come.

Policing political threats

This moment could be the beginning of a police effort to isolate the Palestine movement’s most radical wing from the rest of the solidarity movement, which would increase the danger for activists pursuing more disruptive activity. It is vital to recognise that disruptive direct action can be an aid to mass demonstrations and workplace organising efforts. We are all fighting in different ways for a free Palestine. And when one group is attacked, all groups must pull together in solidarity, as the repressive turn could slide and start to impact all types of activity within the movement. Trade union branches should come out in support of the activists who were physically, brutally attacked by Police Scotland on Wednesday. The police have finally removed their fluffy mask and if hostilities are open, the movement needs to be ready to fight together.

Between the totally effective BAE blockade on May Day, which shut down all 6 entrances of the massive Glasgow site, and the Thales blockade on Nakba Day, Police Scotland seem to have been on an intelligence gathering operation. They asked questions at different Palestine movement spaces trying to find out who is running the blockades. At the Thales blockade, the police also scanned and filmed everybody’s eyes through their masks. This does not necessarily mean the police are preparing to make arrests. They also use intelligence to seek other ways to disrupt and deter a movement. For example, intelligence on the leadership and alliances of a group can be used to demonise the people involved and present them as a fringe threat.

The escalation of intelligence gathering and police violence should also be seen in the context of the other actions that occurred in Scotland between May Day and Nakba Day. Since October, the frequency and damage caused by direct action in Scotland has been going up, and this fortnight saw a lot.

On 8 May, Palestine Action Scotland ‘smashed their way inside‘ the Leonardo factory in Edinburgh, which makes part of the F-35 stealth fighter jet used by Israel to bomb Palestine. Most of the glass entrance was smashed and will need replaced. Everyone was arrested. Activists then blockaded the entrance, but there were very few of them, and the police easily arrested them, as occurs with most Palestine Action occupations. On 10 May, an ‘autonomous cell’ smashed all the windows of Teledyne Defence Scotland, which is the only repair site for Teledyne equipment used in the Middle East, equipment which includes F-35 parts. The activists used fire extinguishers to blast the factory’s interior with red paint. Unlike Palestine Action’s tendency to occupy and await arrest, these activists escaped the scene. 

This latter action is notable for breaking out of the British culture of direct action, which dates to the Greenham Common peace movement, and was more recently set as standard by Extinction Rebellion (XR). XR’s ideological policy of accountability (which partly means not wearing masks), its liberal understanding of police, and the glorification of getting arrested for your actions, still harms ensuing groups like Just Stop Oil, Palestine Action and This is Rigged. At best these groups can casualise arrest, at their worst they glorify it. Either way, this culture has put dozens of very young people into the punitive judicial bail system, if not behind bars. It also makes these groups incredibly legible to the state: it plays right into their hands by gifting them the intelligence on who to target. 

The Teledyne action, however, breaks from this model, preferring unaccountability and anonymity. To the state this is an escalation because it is illegible: it cannot be surveilled or assimilated into state institutions. Although the blockades group causes no property damage, it too is autonomous and anonymous. This new style of direct action in Scotland comes at the same time as government advisor John Woodcock is calling for Palestine Action to be banned as an extremist group. However, these autonomous actions render the banning of Palestine Action pointless, because the actions are unaffiliated. The brand-name Thorn in the side of the British arms industry is becoming a thousand thorns, organising autonomously and illegibly.

Because the movement against arms companies is growing in confidence and strength, the state is now scrambling to get a handle on it. Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice McBean note that ‘what the establishment cannot contain, it smashes.’ Let the establishment try.

Isolating the militant wing

It is a historical pattern that the part of a social movement which is willing to take direct action, is targeted most viciously by the state. Especially under liberal Western governments, the state will use both its media and repressive apparatus to attempt to drive a wedge between a movement’s direct action wing, and the ‘mainstream’ part committed to legal routes such as protest marches and policy change. They can achieve this easily if the movement itself accepts this division. We cannot accept the division. From mass protests to workplace organising, from property damage to boycott campaigns, the whole Palestine movement is part of the same fabric. If one part of the movement is attacked, the entire movement must stand together in support.

The BBC headline on the Thales blockade begins with ‘Police officer bitten.’ Unlikely. Tellingly they quote a cop: ‘One of our officers was bitten, assaults are not part of the job and will not be tolerated, and we were fortunately able to arrest the individual responsible. When policing any protest our priorities are to ensure the safety of protesters, the public and police officers involved as well as preventing criminal behaviour or disorder and deescalating tensions.’ Of course he did not report that it was the police who escalated, the police who prevented the safety of protestors, and the police who inflicted violence. The BBC did not report any of the injuries sustained by protestors. 

The forthcoming report on political violence by arms lobbyist and oil lobbyist John Woodcock will unsurprisingly call for a crackdown on the resistance to arms and oil, by presenting climate and Palestine activists as extremist and banning their high-profile groups. One goal is to frighten people off from getting involved, and stop the movements growing. The state media outlet BBC have already been doing this by describing Palestine marches as ‘hateful’. It’s possible that the government’s game plan is to isolate militant activists through rhetoric, in order to inflict violence upon them later with more public assent. 

For this reason, we need to work with more urgency to shift public opinion on the police. As police and prison abolitionists, this has always been a necessity. But as the Palestine movement becomes the most energised political force for change, at this moment it particularly matters. It requires conversations not only among Palestine activists, but also among our workplaces and communities, and to attendees at the weekly Palestine demos. The state will use the police to attempt to crush what we have been building, the public support for Palestine needs to be harnessed to show that the repression of our actions is illegitimate. 

How we fight back

Scotland today is ensconced in the military-industrial complex. Both in terms of government spending and the arms corporation cats sitting on government advisory boards, the Scottish government is in bed with BAE, Babcock and Thales. With a £100 million grant from Westminster to Glasgow City Council potentially going straight into the coffers of these and other arms giants, it’s hard to imagine the city’s rulers intervening in its lovers’ production of genocide machines. So it is up to the people who make Glasgow to determine what Glasgow makes and doesn’t make. Weapons of war will continue to enable wars elsewhere, and pushing for an industrial transition to socially useful technology like renewable energy technology and medical equipment would be a good middle term goal for a demilitarisation movement. 

Because a lot of Palestine solidarity activists are young, and have until now only experienced Police Scotland’s kitten act, those who have been active in harsher political climates need to step in to share their knowledge. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel but there are intergenerational and geographical gaps preventing us from knowing how to organise under more hostile repression. No one in our movement is dispensable and we cannot afford to lose each other to the state’s carceral regime. 

The risks of taking action are becoming higher, but we still need to escalate. This requires better organisation, better safety, and preparing for more confrontation by becoming skilled in taking care of each other medically, emotionally and physically. Everyone needs to know how to de-arrest each other. For those who cannot risk arrest, there are so many support roles which need to be built up as part of an infrastructure of resistance. Facing a new wave of Home Office attempts to kidnap and deport our neighbours, and with many of us plunged into destitution and despair by skyrocketing rents and living costs, revolutionaries in Scotland have a lot of work to do!

Glasgow’s Palestine solidarity movement is recovering from shock, but we will not be bullied into inactivity or frightened away from the militancy our situation demands. The resistance and steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of Zionist atrocities will continue to embolden us to keep fighting. Although developments in state repression mean some will need to act with more secrecy, we still need to strengthen connections across the movement as a whole, because it is one long fight and all tactics reinforce each other. 

Trade unionists and those active in other parts of the movement need to take a stand and denounce the police brutality we saw on Wednesday. It cannot be normalised. Through attentiveness to sustainability, supporting each other across the movement, and collective care in our smaller groups, we can build a strong network of comrades able to escalate for the breakdown of the British arms trade to Israel.