London, Nov. 29, 2025 (RTSG) — A national demonstration for Palestine took place in London this Saturday, timed to coincide with the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Organizers have said the march was intended to highlight the genocide in Gaza and to press the UK government to change course on Israel, including by ending arms-related support and backing measures aimed at ending occupation and apartheid.

The gathering began at 12:00 p.m. with an assembly on Park Lane, followed by a march to Whitehall.

Organizers have also coordinated coach travel from multiple cities across Britain and Wales—ranging from Birmingham, Bristol, and Cardiff to Newcastle, Nottingham, and Swansea—to bring supporters into the capital for the demonstration.

Starmer’s Israel policy: continued relationship

The march comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government continues to maintain core elements of Britain’s security and defence relationship with Israel, even while applying narrower constraints. In September 2024, the UK suspended a limited tranche of export licences judged most likely to be used in Gaza, while leaving the bulk of licences in place and avoiding a full embargo posture.

At the same time, the UK’s role in the multinational F-35 programme has largely been preserved: UK-made components remained part of the wider pooled supply chain. That posture was reinforced by a legal milestone on November 12, 2025, when a UK court refused permission to appeal a ruling that allows indirect exports of F-35 parts into the global pool Israel can draw from, with the court effectively deferring to the government’s national-security policy.

Beyond industry, the defence relationship has also included operational activity connected to Israel’s military campaign against Gaza. The Ministry of Defence has acknowledged running unarmed surveillance flights beginning in December 2023; it claimed, however, that they were focused on hostage-location efforts and that Britain controlled what information was shared. The MoD position is that those flights ended after later developments in talks and releases, with the latest flight recorded on October 10, 2025. 

Palestine Action ban intensifies protest backlash

The demonstration also comes amid ongoing fallout from the UK government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action, a direct-action network known for disruptive protests targeting arms-linked facilities. The ban was enacted by the Labour government under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, with the decision taken and announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who argued the group had escalated a nationwide campaign of criminal sabotage and damage since early 2024 and that its targets included infrastructure and defence firms tied to Britain’s security commitments.

The proscription was implemented through a 2025 amendment order under the Terrorism Act 2000, coming into force in early July and making membership and certain forms of support criminal offences. Many, however, have called out this move as an abusive and heavy-handed use of counter-terror powers against protest. The UN human-rights chief Volker Türk described the decision as a disturbing misuse of terrorism legislation that risks chilling lawful expression and assembly, urging the UK to reverse course. Civil-liberties groups including Liberty and Amnesty International UK similarly warned that Britain’s terrorism definition is unusually broad and that applying proscription to a protest group pushes the law to its outer limits, with severe penalties that could deter lawful activism.

As of now, the ban remains in force but is being challenged in the High Court by co-founder Huda Ammori, setting up a major legal test over whether the government’s claimed security rationale can justify one of the most sweeping restrictions available under UK law against a domestic protest movement.

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Reporting by Louis, edited by Seraph

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