|
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 56 Number 4, February 14, 2026 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
High Court, London, 13/02/2026
This Saturday, February 14, marks twenty-six years since the Terrorism Act 2000 came into force. This inaugurated a new and permanent stage in the anti-democratic direction of the British state. In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement, with its challenge to British colonial rule in Ireland, the British state and establishment responded with legislation for police powers to permanently attempt to criminalise the people's resistance. It was an unconscionable aim to move from the temporary, reactive legislation to a permanent, comprehensive "anti-terrorism" statute for the 21st century [1].
The Terrorism Act was introduced under Tony Blair and the New Labour government as the champion of police powers behind the throne. It was permanent legislation to rip away the last mask of "civil liberties" and implement the means by which the state attempts to maintain its rule, a rule that was being challenged in Ireland, Britain and around the world by the movements of the working class and people for their rights, their security and ultimately the achievement of their own decision-making power. It was an Act presaging the developments of the 21st century in which, as Tony Blair emphasised after 9/11, the main enemy at home and abroad was declared to be "mass terrorism".
Far from being an Act, as it describes itself, to "protect the public", it has served as a cornerstone of a state architecture of police powers, used to suppress dissent and to intimidate the people. Most recently, this has been so starkly revealed in the summary arrests and imprisonment of the youth, the journalists and all the people opposing the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.
Following the Terrorism Act 2000, the Labour, Coalition, and the Conservative governments have all expanded, amended, and fortified this Act. Each revision having been justified with the same list of excuses in the name of "security", "extremism" and "national interest". Over these decades the Terrorism Act has been supplemented by a whole arsenal of repressive measures:
Presented as "closing loopholes", each new measure has opened the floodgates to the criminalisation of protest, the harassment of political activists, and the intimidation of entire communities - particularly Muslims, migrants, and those who stand in solidarity with the peoples resisting imperialist aggression in the anti-war movements of the people.
London
Yet the lived experience of the people shows that these words are nothing but a cloak for the arbitrary exercise of state power against their rights and their interests and the arbitrary power of the Home Secretary. This experience has thoroughly exposed the police powers of the Act, especially with the huge upsurge of the movement to support the Palestinian people and oppose Britain's support and arming of Israel's genocide in Gaza. This is where the arbitrary use of this Act against the people has been further exposed for what it is - a criminalisation of dissent that has nothing to do with security of the people.
The Act has been used by the Home Secretary to arrest peaceful demonstrators for chanting slogans, displaying Palestinian flags and then - with the proscription of Palestine Action as a "terrorist" organisation in 2025 - for resistance actions against criminal Israeli and British arms industries. The arms manufacturers include Elbit and Rafael, which have been involved in supplying and sending weapons to bomb and kill tens of thousands of men, women, children and babies in Gaza for over two years. This has all added to the British support for the crimes of the Israeli regime against Palestinians for over 70 years. Furthermore, this terrorist law has also been used over recent months to arrest peaceful demonstrators, many of them pensioners and disabled, in their thousands for peacefully displaying signs that oppose these arbitrary powers of the state to ban Palestine Action and those who support the Palestinian people.
In fact, for twenty-six years, the Terrorism Act has been wielded to serve not only domestic repression but also the international aims of British imperialism. The measures in the Act have been constantly used in the support for the Anglo-US invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and their military interventions bombing Libya and Syria and more recently in their escalation of their proxy war as part of NATO against Russia. They have used the Terrorism Act to detain and raid the homes of journalists who stand with Palestine and expose Britain's support in weapons, logistics and intelligence for Israel's war crimes. At the same time, they use the legislation to attack journalists who oppose and expose Britain's involvement and dangerous escalation of NATO's war and its opposition to peace between Ukraine and Russia.
The people reject the criminalisation of the exercise of their rights. The working class and people have never accepted the narrative that these laws are for their protection. They have seen how the state uses "terrorism" as a pretext to ban demonstrations, impose exclusion zones, detain progressive people without charge, seize devices and documents and try to silence those who expose and resist the crimes of the warmongers. The people have also seen how the real threats to their lives - poverty, war, privatisation, the destruction of public services - are ignored or intensified by the very governments that claim to be acting in their name.
A New Direction Is Needed
On this twenty-sixth anniversary, the task before the working class and people is not simply to condemn the Terrorism Act, but to take up the struggle for a modern democratic society and democratic renewal. Rights belong to the people by virtue of being human and are not based on political views, ideology, religion or race or any other consideration. Security is defined by defending the well-being of the people and the rights of all. The peoples have the right to live in a peaceful world, where conflicts are resolved through international co-operation and negotiation among peoples and countries. Security does not lie with these warmongers and their war preparations. Nor does it lie with the prerogatives of the rich, their arms manufactures and their spheres of contention that fuel division and wars among countries, nationalities and peoples.
The Terrorism Act 2000 [2] and its continued arming as a weapon against the people stands as a grotesque monument to a ruling class that fears the people, and must be dismantled. Its continued existence is incompatible with the aspirations of a society in which the people are the decision-makers. Let the 26th anniversary be a call to action. The working class and people must continue to organise, speak out, and resist all attempts to criminalise their struggles. The future does not belong to those who wield police powers in defence of a decaying order. It belongs to the people who are fighting for a society that affirms their rights, their dignity, and their sovereignty. The Terrorism Act must be repealed. The anti-people direction of the state must be dismantled and reversed, and the people must continue to speak in their own name for the new in society. This is the democracy that only they can bring into being.
Notes
1. The Terrorism Act 2000 replaced previous legislation that was a of a
temporary nature. Firstly, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which had been
rushed through the House of Commons in November 1974 after the Birmingham
bombings, and had to be renewed annually. This Act was re-enacted in 1989,
again to be annually reviewed, but casting its net wider. There was also the
Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1996, which was due to lapse in
August 2000. The Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act of 1998 was
another Act rushed through parliament, this time in response to the Omagh
bombing, and this again had to be renewed annually.
2. Terrorism Act 2000 ("Terrorism Act 2000 is up to date with all changes
known to be in force on or before 12 February 2026. There are changes that may
be brought into force at a future date")
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/contents