Why expanding criminalisation is a feminist issue

The proposed proscription of Palestine Action (PA) as a terrorist group and the expansion of police powers in the Crime and Policing Bill are interconnected feminist issues that we can’t afford to ignore. Both are attacks on our protest rights and civil liberties. They’re also terrifying indications that we’re heading towards increased surveillance, repression and imprisonment.

These moves will directly impact women and gender-expansive people – particularly those who are already marginalised – and restrict our collective power to resist bodily and systemic violence. It’s going to impact every single one of us. Here’s how and what we can do about it.

Expanding what counts as “terrorism”

By proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist group, the government is expanding what counts as “terrorism” so that it can, in turn, expand its “counter-terrorism” tactics: increasing police surveillance, expanding the parameters for imprisonment, and repressing the voices of people who fight back.

It sets a dangerous precedent. If the ban is passed in parliament, PA would be the first domestic protest group to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK. Membership will carry a potential 14-year prison sentence and supporting the group, including “expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive”, will also be banned. What’s defined as an expression of support is vague – it’s a move to intentionally stir confusion and fear around showing solidarity with protests against the ongoing genocide.

We should all be worried – PA’s tactics are examples of collective action against systemic violence at its best. Its activists cause material disruption to the machinery of violence and draw attention to the UK’s role in the genocide of Palestinian people. Days before the government banned the group, activists broke into RAF Brize Norton – which stores military aircraft used in Gaza – and spray-painted two of its planes red. It’s easy to see how the decision to proscribe PA will likely help justify increasingly aggressive policing at other direct action protests.

Connection to the Crime & Policing Bill

It’s also no coincidence that this is happening at the same time as the government is pushing through a Crime and Policing Bill that’s expanding criminalisation on a sweeping scale. The Bill includes an amendment that expands Prevent-style laws that target young people suspected of being in the early stages of “terror offending”. It also includes amendments that crack down on protest, for example making it an arrestable offence to conceal your face, climb on a monument, protest near a place of worship, or carry “pyrotechnics”.

Another amendment to the bill will criminalise domestic abuse survivors instead of protecting them. The new Assault on an Emergency Worker (AEW) laws would lower the threshold for what counts as assault, with the vast majority of cases causing no injury. Under these expanded powers, domestic abuse survivors could be arrested for reacting to being disbelieved or physically restrained by police – criminalising their trauma responses.

The partial decriminalisation of abortion as a distraction

Most of these disturbing amendments have gone unnoticed because the same Bill has ushered in piecemeal, partial wins that have distracted feminist’s attention. Last week, when the Bill went into its report stage, MPs voted on an amendment to partially decriminalise abortion – it was lauded as the biggest move for reproductive rights in nearly 60 years.

This amendment means people who end a pregnancy outside the legal framework – for example by buying pills online or after the 24-week limit – wouldn’t be prosecuted. It is a win for some people. But it’s a partial win because the frameworks for accessing abortion will remain the same: abortion will remain in the criminal law and access to it will be no easier.

Until we shift public understanding of abortion as healthcare, there won’t be enough public support to achieve full decriminalisation. Culture change always precedes policy change. This is why we’re putting our weight behind a culture change strategy to campaign for the full decriminalisation of abortion.

As Shanice McBean writes, “This pyrrhic improvement on the current legal landscape for women means feminist groups are rallying behind a Bill that expands laws already leading to hundreds of vulnerable women and domestic abuse survivors being criminalised and imprisoned: significantly underpinning the stark rise in women’s incarceration over recent years.” It’s a calculated strategy: give feminist groups crumbs to distract them while expanding the very system that harms women.

What we can do to resist

The government is hoping that the public will be too scared to push back against the proscription of Palestine Action – and too oblivious to notice the disturbing amendments it’s pushing through the Crime & Policing Bill. So we need to get loud and show them that we care, and we’re not going to sit back while police powers expand and we’re stripped of our liberties. Here’s what you can do now:

Sign the petition to stop the government proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist group, and share it far and wide. It’s urgent: we have one week to show up in solidarity with PA and put enough public pressure on the government to stop it rushing through the ban.

Share this blog and Level Up’s posts on social media so that we spread the word far and wide. The government is banking on feminist groups being distracted by small wins while they expand authoritarian powers – but we can disrupt that strategy by making sure everyone understands what’s really happening.