Chris Nineham is facing trial with PSC Director Ben Jamal on 7 July in relation to the national Palestine protest on 18 January. Michael Lavalette spoke with Chris and asked him why he thinks Palestine activists are being targeted by the state. 

Could you tell us a little about how you got involved with Stop the War and became the chief steward for the Palestine demonstrations? 

I’ve been a socialist since my late teens and I always thought opposition to war and imperialism must be central to the socialist case. That’s especially true in Britain, given its long history of imperial conquest and colonial brutality. 

I helped launch the Stop the War Coalition in 2001. For the previous year and a half I had been working within the anti-capitalist movement that emerged after the protests in Seattle in 1999. I was involved with networks across Europe building for protests at the meetings of the World Trade Organization and the G8. I was one of the organisers of the massive protests at Genoa in July 2001. 

After 9/11 that year, I suppose I brought my international connections and experience to the Stop the War movement. The anti-capitalist movement helped launch the historic protests against the Iraq War including on 15 February, 2003, when thirty million people marched around the world. I’ve been working for Stop the War ever since. 

My role has evolved over the years. As well as speaking, writing and organising, I have been head steward on most of the recent marches against the genocide in Gaza. It was in that role that I was violently arrested on 18 January. The police alleged I breached the Public Order Act and, alongside Ben Jamal, I’m facing trial on 7 and 8 July. 

A number of other people were interviewed about the events on 18 January but most of them have been told they will not face charges. What do you think is going on? 

I think the fact they have dropped threats against the majority of those interviewed is a sign of their weakness. It is quite clear that the police did let us through the lines they had set up on the 18th. I think they realised that charging everyone on a weak case could have been damaging for them. But they are still pursuing Ben and myself because they think they have the greatest chance of getting convictions against us. 

They want to use us as examples. If we are convicted, they think it will have a chilling effect on the movement. 

From the very start of our marches in 2023, the state, the police and government politicians have attempted to marginalise and criminalise our movement. They have put all manner of barriers in place to try to limit protests. What they want to do is drive a wedge between what they see as the hard-core of the movement and broader society. But so far, they have utterly failed in this. 

As well as you and Ben, there is the proscribing of Palestine Action and charges against Mo Chara of Kneecap. There seems to be an authoritarian turn in government policing of our movement. 

This is an unprecedented state campaign of harassment against an entirely peaceful protest movement. The attacks on Kneecap and Palestine Action are a disgrace. The targeting of activists needs to stop. I think you’d need to go back to the Miners’ Strike of 1984-5 to find a comparable level of police mobilisation and criminalisation of a popular movement. 

Last month, there was an anti-austerity demonstration that followed the exact same route that we asked for on 18 January. There were no restrictions whatsoever placed on it; whilst the Palestine march on that same route was banned!  

The Palestine demonstrations have been overwhelmingly peaceful, but they are directly challenging the interests of the British state in the Middle East, and the state’s relationship with both Israel and the US. Israel is the crucial prop of Western interests in the region and any threat to that relationship is potentially a mortal threat to how the Western powers operate and control the region. 

Our movement is creating a massive problem for the British state because support for their relationship with Israel is melting away. However frustrated we all feel, we represent a real challenge to the complicity of our rulers. There is no way the police and the politicians would expend so much time and energy attacking us if we didn’t. 

You said Palestine remains the key political question, how, then, does it relate to, and feed, other movements and campaigns? 

Support for Israel is declining rapidly and is found disproportionately amongst those at the top of society and in the corridors of power. The vast majority on our demonstrations are ordinary working people. The government that is spending billions on weapons, including for Israel, is at the same time cutting welfare, taking money from disabled people and refusing to fund social care.  

As a result, I think increasing numbers of those on our marches are starting to draw connections. Although our movement is focused on the genocide in Gaza, it easily shifted to opposing Israel’s and the US’s war on Iran. Many people can see the parallels with the West’s military backing of Ukraine. Many people recognise that a big fight against austerity would help us with the fight over Palestine. 

When I see people defending their communities against the marines in Los Angeles waving the Palestine flag, when I see teachers on the picket line wearing keffiyehs, when I see Palestine activists marching to stop cuts to disabled benefits, I am filled with hope. 

With all the extreme obstacles we face, it feels like we have started to challenge the whole system. 

From this month’s Counterfire freesheet

Join the protest to defend Chris and Ben: 7 July, 9:30am, City of London Magistrates’ Court, 1 Queen Victoria Street, EC4N 4XY